THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
GIFT OF
PROFESSOR
GEORGE R. STEWART
University of California • Berkeley
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2007 with funding from
IVIicrosoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/bazarbookofdecorOOtomerich
THE BAZAR BOOK
OF
DECORUM.
THE CARE OF THE PERSON,
MANNERS,
ETIQUETTE,
and
CEREMONIALS.
"Those thousand decencies that daily flow
From all her words and actions."
Milton.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1870.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by
Harper & Brothers,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York.
PREFACE.
This book is an attempt to raise the subject
of which it treats to its proper connection with
health, morals, and good taste.
The title is due to the fact that the author
has embodied in the text several articles which
were originally published by him in Harper^s
Bazar, These, though they form but a small
portion of the w^hole work, may be recognized
by some of the many readers of that popular
periodical ; if so, it is hoped that they will be
thought of sufficient value to justify their re-
production in the present form.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Ceremonial Observances founded on Common Sense. — The
peculiar Necessity for Americans to cultivate Politeness. —
Advantage of Politeness. — Duke of Marlborough... Page 9
CHAPTER II.
The Obligation to cultivate Beauty. — Notions of Beauty. —
Beauty and Health. — American Looks. — Their good and
bad Qualities. — How to improve the Bad and preserve
the Good.— The Skin 19
CHAPTER HI.
Relation of Dress to Form. — The Hair. — Dyes. — Grayness.
— Hair-cutting.— Its Effect.— The Nose.— The Eye.—
Squinting. — Short-sightedness. — Eyebrows and Eyelash-
es. — The morbid Phase of Fashion. — Dark - rimmed
Eyes 31
CHAPTER IV.
The Ear. — How to make it beautiful. — Ear-wax. — Ear-
pulling. — The Mouth. — Its Beauty and Ugliness. — The
Proud Muscle. — The Tongue. — Tongue - scraping. — The
Teeth. — Proper Management. — Use of Tobacco 45
VI CONTENTS.
CHAPTER V.
The Hand. — Its Beauty and Utility. — How to beautify the
Hand. — Care of the Nails. — Hang-nails. — Snapping of the
ringers. — Dangers of the Practice. — Warts. — Sweating
of the Hands. — The Foot. — The proper Form of the Shoe.
— The Defects of the fashionable Shoe. — Corns. — Bun-
ions. — Ingrowth of the Nail. — A terrific Operation. —
Sweating of the Feet Page GO
CHAPTER VI.
The Power of Expression and Action. — Freedom and Grace.
— A Talleyrand and a Rustic Antinous. — Lord Chester-
field's awkward Man. — Too much Interference. — A whole-
some Neglect. — Ugly Tricks of Expression and Gesture.
— A wriggling Nose. — The Success of ugly Men. — Sub-
mission to the Law^s of Nature. — A modern Beauty con-
fronted with the Venus of Milo. — Excessive Fatness and
Thinness. — How to be Cured. — Deformities the Result of
bad Management in Childhood. — Dancing. — Proper Ex-
ercise. — Mind and Body. — Freedom from Restraint... 73
CHAPTER VII.
American Ease. ^Propriety of Posture. — A well-bred Person
not Demonstrative. — Fuss. — Its Discomforts and Indeco-
rousness.-— The Free and Easy. — The Prim. — Fault of the
American Walk. — Inelegant Attitudes and Gestures ... 96
CHAPTER VIII.
The Expression. — How far Involuntary. — Laughter. — Its
Propriety. — Its Advantages. — Blushing. — Shamefaced-
ness. — Hawthorne in Company. — Great Men, Men of So-
ciety. — The Disguises of Age. — Too much Hair. — Hair-
dressing. — Misuse of the Nose. — Artificial Odors 104
CONTENTS. vn
CHAPTER IX.
Discreet Use of the Eye. — Familiar Glances. — The Fashion
of Eye-glasses. — Fast Girls. — Winking. — Sleeping in
Company. — The Somnolence of Washington Irving. -~
Ear-boring. — Its Cruelty and Barbarism Page 1 J 6
CHAPTER X.
Purity of Speech. — Effect of refined Association. — Exagger-
ation of American Talk. — Fashionable Falsehood. — Plain
Speaking. — Prudishness of Speech 127
CHAPTER XI.
The Defects of the American Voice. — Their Cause. — Ugly
Noises with the Mouth. — Decency of Motion. — Attitudin-
izing. — Affected Women. — Ugly Tricks. — Hand-shaking.
— Democratic Intrusiveness. — American Publicity. — The
Impertinence of British Loyalty. — Salutations. — Care of
the Hands and Nails 138
CHAPTER XII.
Effect of Civilization on Dress. — The opposite Progress of
Man and Woman in the Art of Dressing. — The true Rule
of Dress. — Uniformity of Dress in America. — Inappropri-
ateness of Dress. — Sunday-best 155
CHAPTER XIII.
Superfinery of Dress. — Overdressed Women. — Slatterns at
Home. —Hygiene of Dress.— Child-hardening.— Its Cruelty
and Folly. — Stove-pipe Hats and Dress-coats 170
CHAPTER XIV.
Food. — Importance of the Manner of eating Food.^ — The
Vlll CONTENTS.
Decency of Feeding. — Its Effect on Health and Appetite.
— Chatted Food. — Dainty Feeders Page 183
CHAPTER XV.
Etiquette of the Breakftist. — Etiquette of the Luncheon. —
Etiquette of the Dinner 195
CHAPTER XVI.
Etiquette of the Dinner {continued). — After Dinner 212
CHAPTER XVII.
Ancient and Modem Hospitality. — Etiquette of the Evening
Party and Ball. — The Effect of late Parties. — Manners
and Morals. — Treatment of Servants 223
CHAPTER XVIII.
Visiting Lists. — Report of the Proceedings of a Morning
Visit. — Etiquette of Visits and Cards. — New- Year's Visits.
—At Home, or not at Home?— P. P. C 230
CHAPTER XIX.
American Titles. — Proper Forms of Address. — The Use- of
the "Sir" and " Madam. "—Professional Titles.— How to
address Letters. — Esq. — Female Titles. — Nicknames. —
Introductions. — Letters of Introduction. — Presentations
to Court.— Visits to the President 243
CHAPTER XX.
Births and Christenings. — Giving of Names. — Presents. —
Visits. — Caudle Parties. — Etiquette and Ceremony of
Man*iages. — At Church. — In the House.— Death. — Fu-
neral Ceremonies. — Finis 255
T II E
BAZAE BOOK OF DECORUM.
CHAPTER I.
Ceremonial Observances founded on Common Sense. — The
peculiar Necessity for Americans to cultivate Politeness. —
Advantage of Politeness. — Duke of Marlborough.
It is quite a mistake to suppose that the cere-
monial observances of society are merely a set
of edicts arbitrarily established by the capricious
tyrant, Fashion, for the government only of her
slavish subjects. Polite conduct is not neces-
sarily more exclusive than correct speaking.
The laws of the one are indeed, like those of the
other, founded upon the usage of the refined
few, but there is no better reason why these
should enjoy a monopoly of good manners than
of good grammar. There are many, however,
who seem to think that social ceremonies are so
many frivolous affectations by which the wealthy
or fashionable strive to raise themselves to a fac-
10 COMMON SENSE OF ETIQUETTE.
titious elevation above otheiis, and consequently
refuse all observance of them with scorn. It is
an unfortunate thing for general culture when
the many acquire such a prejudice against the
few that in their aversion to their pretentious
superiority they reject their real excellence.
The small class of the rich and refined have
time to cultivate the elegancies of life ; and al-
though, in the excess of their leisure, they super-
add a variety of frivolous ceremonies, their ex-
ample in what is practically useful should be
followed. Wesley used to say, when advocat-
ing the adaptation of the music of the opera and
theatre to the sacred songs of the Church, that
he did not know why the devil should have all
the best tunes. We may ask, with equal reason,
why Fashion should have all the good manners.
It would be easy to show that many ceremo-
nious observances which appear at first sight
frivolous are founded upon a solid basis of com-
mon sense. Consider, for example, that rule of
the dinner-table. Do not ask twice for soup.
This appears at first sight both sill 3^ and arbi-
trary. It is, however, a very sensible ordinance,
and is to be justified by the laws of health, and
the general comfort and convenience. The soup,
being a fluid substance, can easily be absorbed
in small quantities, and, thus taken, is a good
KEASONS FOK CEREMONY. 11
preparative for the solidities of the dinner. If,
however, the stomach is dehiged with it, the ap-
petite and digestion become weakened, and there
is neither the inclination to eat nor the power to
digest the more substantial food essential to the
due nutrition of the body. As for the conven-
ience or comfort of the single-plate rule, no one
can deny it who has ever looked upon an array
of hungry guests w^hose eager appetite for the
coming roast has been forced to an impatient
delay by some social monster capable of asking
twice for soup. The cook in the mean time is,
of course, thrown out in his calculations, and the
dish, when it does come at last, is either spoiled
by overcooking, or cold from being withdrawn
so long from the fire. The guests thus are not
only tried in temper by a protracted expecta-
tion, but balked of their anticipated enjoyment.
The advantage of not putting the knife in the
mouth will be obvious, we suppose, to all who
are conscious that the one can cut and the other
is capable of being cut. There is an excellent
chemical reason for that other table rule w^hich
forbids the use of a knife of steel with the fish,
the ordinary sauces of which combine with the
metal, and produce a comjDOsition neither whole-
some nor appetizing.
All that is w^orth borrowing from the fashion- '
12 THE NECESSITY OF GOOD MANNEES.
able code can be had without much additional
cost either of time or money. For example, a
table can be well set as expeditiously and with
no more expense than if every article upon it
was placed out of line with its fellows. There
is no economy, pecuniary or otherwise, in serv-
ing a dish to the right instead of the left of the
guest, while the latter has the advantage not
only of being the correct thing, but the most
convenient. So, too, there can be no minutes
saved from the dinner-hour by gorging the stom-
ach with pie or pudding in advance of the beef
and cabbage, while there is the very serious
waste of appetite upon the less nutritious food.
The great purpose of the rules of etiquette is
to inculcate good manners, and thus render us
mutually agreeable. It is, therefore, especially
incumbent upon all Americans to know and
obey them, for it is impossible for us to avoid
contact. We are all forced, in spite of individ-
ual objections and protests, to put into practice
the national theory of equality. We must mix
together, and it therefore behooves us, for our
own comfort, to make the mixture as smooth
and uniform as possible.
In no country in the world are general good
manners so indispensable as in this democratic
country. In Europe, where, in society as at the
DEMOCEACY OF GOOD MANNERS. 13
railway stations, different classes are recognized
and kept apart by insurmountable barriers and
vigilant guards, it is possible, if you happen to
be among the high-bred " firsts" or decent " sec-
onds," to endure the existence of the unruly
" thirds." These last, in fact, when viewed at a
convenient remoteness of distance, are not with-
out their interest. Their unkempt hair, botched
and greasy suits, rude manners, and coarse ver-
nacular, are parts of the European picture, and
by their own homely raciness, as well as the con-
trast they afford to the brilliancy of their supe-
riors, seem essential to its effect. To look at a
rough and unwashed from the safe distance of
European social distinction, by w^hich he is toned
down to the picturesqueness of one of Murillo's
lousy beggar-boys, is one thing ; it is quite an-
other, how^ever, to have him at your elbow on
railway and at. hotel, where you can hear, feel,
and smell him. It is obvious, therefore, that the
rough and dirty are quite out of place in this
country, where, if they exist, they are sure to be
close at your side. Universal cleanliness and
good manners are essential to a democracy.
This must be generally recognized and acted
upon, or the refined will seek in other countries
the exclusiveness which will secure for them that
nicety of life essential to its enjoyment, and we
14 KUDENESS NOT ESSENTIAL.
shall be left alone to wallow in our own brutal-
ity and foulness.
There is no reason why propriety of manners
should not' be as general in the United States as
it is exclusive in most countries. With our fa-
cility of mixture, any leaven we have can be eas-
ily made to pervade the whole mass. There is
no vested right, in this country at least, in de-
cency and cleanliness. We can all be, if we
please, what we are so fond of calling ourselves,
gentlemen and ladies.
There is, however, an idea somewhat preva-
lent, especially among our newly-arrived Demo-
crats, that it is an essential principle of democra-
cy to be rude and dirty. They forget that they
are no longer, in this country, as they might have
been in their own, in an antagonistic position to
every cleanly and polite person. A man who
has his shoes blacked and takes his hat off to a
lady is not in the United States necessarily an
aristocrat. It is this erroneous notion, which we
venture to say is an imported one, that decency
of person and manners must be associated with
aristocracy, which keeps us still supplied with so
many of the rough and dirty sort. Not a few
of our public men are responsible for the encour-
agement of this vulgar faith in democratic foul-
ness. They affect a carelessness of dress and
PKOFIT OF GOOD MANNERS. 15
coarseness of talk and manners with the idea
that they thus assimilate and make themselves
more acceptable to the multitude. We doubt,
however, the success of an expedient which is
any thing but a compliment to eveu the rudest
and dirtiest. We were once a witness to a sig-
nal failure of a political orator who ventured to
try this kind of tactics upon a New England
audience. " I have not come," he said, " to be
received with any ceremonious attention, but to
take a drink and a chaio^ of tobacco with you."
This might have gone down in Slum Hall of his
native city, where he was wont to stir the "fierce
democracy," but his audience of Puritan decency
and sobriety would have been less shocked by
the dash of a genuine bucket of cold water than
by this vulgar suggestion of the groggery.
Philosophers and men of the world are alike
of the opinion that propriety of manners is to be
commended, not only for its own sake, but for
the social advantage it gives. Locke, in his
celebrated treatise, makes good breeding, by
which he means refined behavior, an essential
element of the character of the well educated.
Lord Chesterfield rates so highly the graces, as
he terms them, that he seems to give them a
value beyond that of the virtues. It appears
* ProYincialism for " quid" or " cud."
16 DUKE OF MAKLBOROUGH.
that his lordship would have much preferred his
son, whom he strove so hard, but vainly, to en-
dow with all the. graces, to be an elegant rogue
than an honest lout. He evidently thought that
refinement .of manners did more to gain the
whole world, and was therefore more desirable,
for he took little account of the possibility of
the loss of a soul, than obedience to the twelve
commandments. He certainly gives a remark-
able example of its power. " Of all the men
that ever I knew in my life (and I knew him ex-
tremely well), the late Duke of Marlborough,"
says he, " preserved the graces in the highest
degree, not to say engrossed them ; and, indeed,
he got the most by them, for I will venture (con-
trary to the custom of profound historians, who
always assign deep causes for great events) to
ascribe the better half of the Duke of Marlbor-
ough's greatness and richness to those graces.
He was eminently illiterate ; wrote bad English,
and spelled it still worse. He had no share of
what is commonly called parts ; that is, he had
no brightness, nothing shining in his genius. He
had, most undoubtedly, an excellent good j)lain
understanding, with soifnd judgment ; but these
alone Avould probably have raised him but some-
thing higher than they found him, which was
page to King James the Second's queen. There
THE CHARM OF THE DUKE, 17
the graces protected and pi'omoted him ; for,
while he was an ensign of the Guards, the Duch-
ess of Cleveland, then favorite mistress to King
Charles the Second, struck by those very graces,
gave him five thousand pounds, with which he
immediately bought an annuity for his life, of
five hundred pounds a year, of my grandfather,
Halifax, which was the foundation of his subse-
quent fortune. His figure was beautiful, but his
manner was irresistible by either man or woman.
It was by this engaging, graceful manner that
he was enabled, during all his war, to connect
the various and jarring powers of the Grand Al-
liance, and to carry them on to the main object
of the war, notwithstanding their private and sep-
arate views, jealousies, and wrongheadednesses.
Whatever court he went to (and he was often
obliged to go himself to some testy and refrac-
tory ones), he as constantly prevailed and brought
them into his measures. The Pensionary Hcin-
sius, a venerable old minister, grown gray in
business, and who had governed the Republic
of the United Provinces for more than forty
years, was absolutely governed by the Duke of
Marlborough, as that republic feels to this day.
He was always cool, and nobody ever observed
the least variation in his countenance. He could
refuse more gracefully than other people could
B
18 A GEEAT EXEMPLAR UNNECESSARY.
grant, and those who went away from him the
most dissatisfied as to the substance of their
business, were yet charmed w^ith him, and in
some degree comforted by his manner. With
all his gentleness and gracefulness, no man living
was more conscious of his situation, nor main-
tained liis dignity better."
It was hardly necessary, however, to evoke
from the shades of history so grave an exemplar
of the graces as the great victor of Blenheim to
inculcate the necessity in these days of attention
to the refined civilities of life. These have be-
come so general, and so essential to the conduct
of society, that no shop-boy or kitchen-maid is
either entirely ignorant of, or ventures wholly to
disreojard them.
SOCIAL OBLIGATION OF BEAUTY. 19
CHAPTER 11.
The Obligation to cultivate Beauty. — Notions of Beauty. —
Beauty and Health. — American Looks. — Their good and
bad Qualities. — How to improve the Bad and preserve
the Good.— The Skin.
Though we may not give full assent to Mad-
ame de Pompadour's dictum that the chief duty
of woman is to be beautiful, we do not hesitate
to confess the opinion that it is a social obliga-
tion not only of her sex, but that of the male, to
make the best possible appearance. A code such
as that of good manners, which recognizes as its
main purpose to render us mutually agreeable,
can hardly be complete if it does not contain
rules for the proper management of the person.
It would seem to be an essential part of polite-
ness to commend ourselves to each other by such
a care of our bodies that they may not only be
free from offense, but a source of positive pleas-
ure to those with whom we are in communion.
We ought not to be cpntent merely with having
our bodily presence endured, but should, as far
as it lies in our power, make ourselves physically
attractive. We so far agree, then, with Madame
20 IKDEFINITENESS OF BEAUTY.
de Pompadour as to acknowledge that it is the
duty of woman, and also of man, to be beautiful
if they can.
It is a curious fact that few women are com-
petent judges of what is essentially a quality of
their own — female beauty. It is not easy for
any one to define it, though we all recognize its
presence. It depends so much upon expression
and action, which are essentially mobile, that it
is almost impossible to grasp and fix it in a def-
inition. Many have taken an entirely material-
istic view of the matter, and attempted to meas-
ure it by the arithmetic of proportion or weigh
it according to avoirdupois. Brantome, one of
the most decided of these, has the presumption
to count on the ends of his fingers the qualities
of female beauty, as if they were so many points
in a fine horse. He enumerates them thus :
** Three white things — the skin, teeth, and hands.
Three dark — the eyes, eyebrows, and eyelids.
Three red — the lips, cheeks, and nails.
Three long — the body, hair, and hands.
Three short — the teeth, ears, and feet.
Three broad — the chest, forehead, and space between the
eyes, "etc., etc., etc.
Women are too apt to j'egard delicacy, in its
physical sense of weakness, as an essential ele-
ment of beauty. This is a false and dangerous
notion, which finds expression in the afiectation
BEAUTY AND IIEALTIT. 21
of paleness of complexion and tenuity of figure,
which are deliberately acquired by a systematic
disobedience of the laws of health. No unwhole-
some person, whatever may be the regularity of
her features and the fineness of her mould, can
justly claim to be beautiful; and we doubt
whether any woman who cultivates sickness
and weakness has a sound idea of the value of
good looks.
There can be no beauty without health ; and
it might also be said that there can not be health
without beauty. Form, color, and expression
r.re essentially dependent upon the soundness
of the human structure for their attractiveness.
The grace of a justly-proportioned stature and
well-moulded limbs can only be the result of
Avholesome bone and flesh. The skeleton must
be composed of a substance in which certain
mineral and animal matters are mixed in fixed
proportions, or it will neither possess the flexi-
bility nor the firmness necessary to the erectness
combined with mobility proper to the human
figure. Too much or too little of either ingre-
dient not only indicates disease, but is fatal to
beauty of form. Those human monsters of
dwarfed proportions and devious shaj)e, occa-
sionally seen, owe their ugliness to a want of
mineral matter, or lime, in their bones. These,
22 FORM AND BEAUTY.
being deficient in stiffness, are unable to resist
the wanton action of the muscles, and are thus
cramped, twisted, and knotted into a tangled
heap of deformity. So a too meagre supply of
animal matter, or oil, another proof of disease,
will give the bony frame an inflexibility and
brittleness fatal to ease and grace of movement.
This unctuousness is apt to evaporate with the
coming of disappointment, the exhaustion of
strength, and advance of time, and thus the
primness of the old maid and bachelor, and ri-
gidity of the patriarch.
The contour of the human figure derives its
principal beauty from the soft parts which cover
and are contained within the bony frame. The
muscles must be originally endowed with
strength and continually invigorated by exer-
cise in order that they may have that gradu-
ated fullness and waviness of outline essential
to a beautiful form. Spread over the muscles,
and penetrating between them, are layers of fat
and cellular tissue, which, if in proper quantity,
contribute not a little to external beauty. Any
excess or deficiency, however, will be sure to re-
sult in ugliness. There is no hoi3e of the prize
of beauty being adjudged to the unduly bloated
or collapsed of body, whatever maybe the force
of their pretensions in other respects. Excessive
THE BLOOD AND BEAUTY. 23
fatness or thinness is not only a deviation from
the lines of proportion, but from the laws of
health.
The lungs, the liver, the stomach, and entrails
all bear a proportionate share in giving shape to
the human structure. These organs must have
that degree of development essential to health
in order to fill up their proper places in the con-
tour of the human form. If the lungs collapse
from want of exercise, disease, or any other
cause, the chest falls in, and loses the arched full-
ness of its natural beauty. If the stomach, liver,
and entrails are, by excess and perverted use,
forced into undue prominence, there results that
deviation from natural proportioa the most fatal
to good looks, the pot-belly.
The condition of the blood has. also much to
do with human beauty or ugliness. This fluid
of life must have certain ingredients, and those
only mixed in certain proportions, or it will not
have the qualities essential either to good health
or looks. A want of one of its smaller constitu-
ents, iron, will deprive the blood not only of its
strength, but its color, and thus the person in
whose veins it circulates will be in danger, as he
will have the pallor of death. When some sub-
stance gets into the blood which should not be
there, it not only poisons, but discolors the body.
24: THE SKIN AND BEAUTY.
Thus, in a case of jaundice, the whole skin will
be stained with an ugly tint varying from yel-
low to green.
The condition of the skin, which is the en-
velope of the whole human structure, has a won-
derful influence upon the external aspect. It is,
as it were, the atmosphere which surrounds that
microcosm, or little world, of human being — Man.
Upon its purity depends greatly the look of ev-
ery part and feature, which can only be seen
through it. If the skin is not kejDt in a whole-
some condition by a proper diet and regimen,
there can be no beauty. A dingy integument
will spoil the grace of proportion and delicacy
of line of the most regularly cut face and per-
fectly moulded form.
It is useless for the naturally beautiful to at-
tempt to preserve their charms while neglecting
the care of their health ; but wholesomeness is
so satisfactory and attractive that its possessor
needs no other quality to secure admiration and
happiness.
Exercise in the open air, regular meals of nu-
tritious food, daily bathing in cold water, and
agreeable and systematic occupation, are the
main requisites for giving health,. strength, and
grace to the human body.
The chief faults of the American person are
AMERICAN BEAUTY. 25
excessive paleness or yellowness of complexion,
and thinness of structure. It is common for for-
eigners to praise our people for tlieir good looks,
and the American face is certainly remarkable
for its regularity. It seldom presents those ex-
traordinary deviations from the classical ideal so
frequently observed in foreigners. Those mon-
strous developments of the features, which are
not seldom found in the German or Irish coun-
tenance, and api^roximate it to the various types
of the lower animals, are rare among native-born
Americans. As people of all nations come hith-
er, we have, of course, every kind of face. There
are, accordingly, all varieties of disproportion
and degrees of ugliness to be occasionally seen.
These, such as the low heads and crumpled faces
which look as if they had been squashed in the
making ; the nasal appendages fleshy and pend-
ent, like abortive elephants' trunks ; the ears
tumid and misshapen as gigantic oysters; the
thick lips, eviscerated mouths, and projecting
under jaws, are generally of foreign importation.
The American complexion is surpassed in
freshness and clearness by the English in youth.
Our dry atmosphere is unfavorable both to the
color and transparency of the skin. In advanced
age, however, Ave have decidedly the advantage.
While the English complexion is apt to become
26 THE AMERICAN FACE.
pimpled and blowsy, and seems to indicate gross-
ness and overfeeding, the American, with the
progress of time, ripens to a mellow ruddiness,
whick harmonizes well with gray hairs, and the
veneration which is due to them.
The American face, having generally but little
fat or cellular tissue, shrinks readily into wrink-
les, and thus we are suj)posed to wear out ear-
lier than we do. The earnestness and activity
of mind in the United States give a concentra-
tion to the expression of the general countenance,
and also soon furrow it. Compare the peasant
face of Europe with that of the working peo-
ple of this country. The former aj)pears like a
mass of dough rolled into a uniform surface; the
latter is full of lines, distinct and expressive as
those of a steel engraving.
The pallidness of complexion and meagreness
of frame which are characteristic of our women
may be partly attributed to their diet, which is
ordinarily not sufficiently generous to give rud-
diness of color and fullness of flesh.
Our dames, although we do not advise them
to go to bed nightly on a supper of Stilton cheese
and London stout like their English sisters,
would, we believe, improve their looks if they
lived better. By living better we mean feeding
at regular intervals upon well-cooked, nutritious
GOOD LIVING FAVORABLE TO BEAUTY. 27
food, instead of wasting their appetites upon
cakes, sweets, and other indigestible articles,
which fill the stomach, but starve the body.
Hear what Brillat Savarin says upon the effects
of 2:ood livino; : " Gourmandise is favorable to
beauty. A train of exact and rigid observations
have demonstrated that a succulent, delicate, and
careful regimen repels to a distance, and for a
length of time, the external appearance of old
age. It gives more brilliancy to the eyes, more
freshness to the skin, more support to the mus-
cles ; and as it is certain in physiology that it
is the depression of the muscles which causes
wrinkles, those formidable enemies of beauty, it
is equally true to say that, cceteris paribus^ those
who understand eating are comparatively ten
years younger than those who are strangers to
this science."
The necessity of frequent bathing, not only
for the preservation of health, but of beauty, is
apparent from the structure and functions of the
skin. This is divided by anatomists into two
layers, the epidermis and dermis. The former
is the most external, and is called sometimes the
scarf skin. This is being constantly formed anew,
while the old gathers upon the surface in heaps
of scales, which are more or less adherent. If
allowed to accumulate, they will seriously injure
28 CAPwE OF THE SKIN.
not only the health of the skm itself, but that of
the whole body. They will irritate the surface,
producing various ugly eruptions, dull the sen-
sibility, and destroy the gloss, flexibility, and
transparency upon Avhich the beauty of the com-
plexion and skin esj)ecially depends. These wdll,
moreover, if left to increase and harden, so close
up the pores as to hinder the transpiration es-
sential to health and life.
Tlie only effectual means of getting rid of these
deposits is by the use of soap. The scales of the
scarf-skin are composed of albumen, the same as
the white of eggs, and this is soluble in Avhat the
chemists term alkalies. N^ow soaps of all kinds,
containing as their principal constituent potash
or soda, which are chemically described as alka-
lies, are, according to science as well as experi-
ence, the best cleansers of the skin, for they dis-
solve the natural scarf, as w^ell as the oil which
accumulates upon it. Thus, while removing dirt
from the body, we are performing at the same
time a function necessary to health.
It is said of a Frenchwoman that she once re-
marked, " How strange it is that we should be
always washing our hands, when we never wash
our feet!" It is -to be hoped that this strange-
ness was peculiar to herself A no less remark-
able fact, liowever, and one which is imquestion-
EFFECT OF COSMETICS. 29
ably so general as to justify an observation, is
the limited application of soap to the human
body. Without extending our inquiry beyond
the face, let us ask how many fair dames ever
apply a lather to their complexions ? Now we
advise them to overturn into the fire all their
face- washes, as the good Vicar of Wakefield did
those of his daughters, and to betake themselves
to soap. The best kind should be used, such as
the well-known Windsor, or any other in which
the alkali is not too abundant or strong. The
ordinary cosmetics and artificial washes hide, but
do not cleanse away the dirt, and are apt, more-
over, to mottle the complexion with brown and
yellow spots,* like the eyes of grease in an 411-
made soup.
Under the outer covering, or epidermis, is the
thicker dermis, or sensitive skin. The ruddy
color observed in the healthy of our race comes
from the blood circulating in this inner layer of
the human integument. This is beyond the
reach of the paint-pot and face-washes; and there
is no other means of preserving its beautiful ro-
seate tint, and giving full effect to its brilliancy
in the complexion, than by a proper care — with
* We shall so far indulge our fair readers as to tell them
that lime-juice will remove these ugly stains, while at the
same time reminding them that it will only take effect after
a good preliminary lathering of the face.
30 EATING ARSENIC.
suitable exercise^ diet, and regimen — of the bod-
ily health. It is from this inner source that
comes the rose-blush which warms the pellucid
whiteness of the blonde, and gives the ruddy
mellowness of the peach to the ripe color of the
brunette. That, however, it may glow with all
its natural purity and beauty, it is necessary that
the thin veil which covers it should be kept un-
obstructed and translucent. If the scarf, or out-
er skin, becomes thickened and dulled by neglect,
dirt, and the use of cosmetics, the color of the
inner, or sensitive skin, will necessarily be hid-
den, and the chief charm of the natural complex-
ion of our race lost. A proper attention to the
g«iBral health, and a free use of soa|) and water
all over, are the only means of obtaining a sound
skin and a good complexion.*
* Ever since a traveler imprudently revealed- the fact that
some women, of the Carpathian valleys, we believe, secm^ed
for themselves beautiful complexions by feeding on arsenic,
this practice, it is said, has been more or less generally adopt-
ed, not only in Europe, but in this country. Physicians have,
moreover, for a long time been in the habit of prescribing, in
diseases of the skin, a preparation called Fowler s Solution,
the principal constituent of which is arsenic. This remedy
is considered an eifective one, but its danger is so great that
it is given only in the smallest doses, and its operation is
watched with the utmost care and anxiety. Arsenic is one
of the deadliest poisons, and no one should venture, with the
remote possibility of its giving clearness to the complexion,
to dabble with it.
DKESS AND FOKM. 31
CHAPTER III.
Relation of Dress to Form. — The Hair. — Dyes. — Grayness.
— Hair-cutting. — Its Effect. — The Nose. — The Eye. —
Squinting. — Short-si^tedness. — Eyebrows and Eyelash-
es. — The morbid Phase of Fashion. — Dark - rimmed
Eyes.
While in ancient times it was the form which
gave shajDc to the dress, nowadays it is the dress
which gives shape to the form. We have thus
given up our bodies to the tailor and dress-mak-
er to be fashioned according to- tlieir capAfes.
The Greek woman, with a genuine contour of
swelling bosom and rounded limb, was content
to cover herself with a simple cloth, which, con-
fident in her graceful proportions, she left to as-
sume the natural lines of her figure. The mod-
ern dame of fashion, distrustful of nature, resorts
to the artifices of the dress-maker, and thus, with
no visible sign of her original form, breathes,
sighs, and swells in depths of cotton and cir-
cumferences of whalebone.
Though the " lady" and " gentleman" of our
day, being lay figures more or less stufiTed with
hair and stiffened with wire, have little to do
32 THE IIAIK.
with their general " make-up," there are certain
parts of their bodies which they can not wholly
disguise with the shams of dress. These, there-
fore, remain more or less in their natural state,
and are left to show the beauties or defects they
may possess. Of such parts of their bodies men
and women are not in the habit of delegating
the entire care to other haid-S than their own.
While, therefore, we do not presume to meddle
with the mantua-maker and tailor, but leave to
their art the skillful disposition of the lines and
proportions of the human figure, we shall ven-
ture to claim for nature a part in the manage-
ment of those portions of the frame which can
n<ffc be wholly concealed or disguised.
There is no part of the human body with w^hich
the busy hand of fashion has so much interfered
as the hair, and especially that of woman. Fe-
male ingenuity seems exhaustless of device in
twisting, plaiting, frizzing, knotting, heaping up,
scattering, and torturing into every possible form
and direction the flexible material which natu-
rally covers the head. Of these multiform mon-
strosities of shape there is none uglier than the
chignon, lately so prevalent and still lingering
unfortunately. This tumor-like excrescence dis-
figures the top of the head with the appearance
of a horrid growth of disease which would seem
FALSE IIAIK AND DYES. 33
to call for the knife of the surgeon did we not
know that it could be placed or displaced at the
will of the wearer — sufferer we were about to
say.*
We are grateful to modern fashion for its taste-
ful rejection of the front of false hair, and the
graceful submission of old age to its whitened
locks. There is no severer trial of reverence
than the sight of one of those ugly patches of
black stuck over the eyes of a matron, and noth-
ing can accord so ill as its positiveness of color
and precision of outline with the mottled mel-
lowness and wavy lines of an aged face.
Dyeing the hair is the most preposterous of
all attempts at human deceit ; for it deceives no
one but the deceiver himself, whose vanity leads
him to believe that his artifice is successful.
There is no one who has once commenced this
practice of giving an artificial color to his hair
* The hair of which the chignon or waterfall is made is
mostly brought from CafFreland, where it is cut from the
heads of the filthiest and most disgusting population in the
world. The former sources of supply, the peasants of Ger-
many, and the dead of hospitals and prisons, are incapable of
furnishing the excessive demand for hair created by the gen-
eral prevalence of the present monstrosity of fashion. The
Hottentot product is shipped to London, near which there is
a place where it was purified. This, however, in consequence
of the intolerable stench, has been indicted as a nuisance.
c
34: GKAY AND FALLING HAIE.
but must regret it. It is generally begun with
the idea that a single aiDplication will be suffi-
cient for all time ; but when it is discovered that
it must be continued, the constant repetition of
the dirty and fatiguing process soon becomes
wearisome and disgusting. Each application of
the dye, whatever it may be, colors, or discolors
rather, only that portion of the hair above the
surface of the scalp. The new growth, which is
constantly taking place from the roots, appears
always with the natural tint.
There is a premature grayness which some-
times occurs in the young, chiefly in those of
light complexions and light-colored hair, which
is the consequence of weakness of the nervous
power. This, as well as the loosening and fall-
ing out of the hair, which come often from the
same cause, may be checked by increase of the
general vigor and the use of proper local reme-
dies. A useful practice, when the hair is suffi-
cieiitly short to admit of it, is to plunge the head
in cold water morning and night, and, after
thoroughly drying, to brush it briskly until the
scalp is warmed to a glow. A simple lotion
composed of half an ounce of vinegar of canthar-
ides, and an ounce each of Cologne and rose wa-
ters, rubbed on the scalp, will probably be found
beneficial. The dandruff, which is a natural for-
HAIR-CUTTING. 35
mation composed of the scales of the skm which
are being constantly thrown off, requires only a
proper cleanliness to prevent its too great accu-
mulation, and a moderate use of oil or pomatum
to moisten the scalj).
It is very questionable whether frequent cut-
ting of the hair is as favorable to its growth and
beauty as is generally supposed. In fact, some
of the most luxuriant heads of hair we have ever
seen had never been touched by the scissors. It
is quite certain that the common practice of crop-
ping, or shaving the head for the purpose of
strengthening the growth of the hair, not only
fails of this effect, but often produces the con-
trary result, and not seldom total baldness en-
sues where a small stock is sacrificed with the
delusive hope of obtaining a great supply.
The depilatories of the nostrum venders for
the removal of superfluous hair are dangerous.
If dame or damsel should be troubled by the
show of a mustache or beard, we know of no
means of checking this masculine encroachment
but by the patient use of the tweezers.
The American Indians are said to succeed in
smoothing their faces by persistingly plucking
out each hair as it grows.
There is no feature of the face so essential to
good looks as the nose. It admits of great va-
36 THE NOSE.
riety of form, but it must be there in some shape
or other. Though the nose is not capable, as the
eye and mouth, of much variety of expression, its
particular conformation has more to do than that
of any other single feature with the individual
character of the human countenance. Change
this in a drawing, without altering any other
part, and you will find with each variety a com-
plete transformation of the whole face.
The Grecian nose, with its straight lines and
symmetrical arrangement, has been generally
accepted by artists as the most beautiful ; but
different nations, notwithstanding, cling fondly
to their own particular forms of this organ. A
Hottentot Venus, we may be assured, would
never receive the prize of beauty from any Paris
of her own race if she were destitute of the na-
tional flat nose. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who held
that the idea of beauty was dependent upon the
association of ideas, would evidently have ap-
proved of the principles of the African judge.
He would, however, at the same time have con-
gratulated himself, doubtless, that, being an En-
glishman, he was not bound to acce|)t the flat
nose of Ethiopia as a necessary element of his
own idea of beauty. " I suppose nobody will
doubt," he says, " if a negro painter was to paint
the Goddess of Beauty, that he would represent
NASAL BEAUTY. 37
her black, with thick lips, flat nose, and woolly
hair ; and it seems to me that he would act very
unnaturally if he did not ; for by what criterion
will any one dispute his idea ?"
There seems to be no absolute standard of
nasal beauty. The Komans were proud of their
stern and portentous aquilines, and the Israelites
would probably not be content to lose the small-
est tip of their redundant beaks. The Tartars,
having no noses to speak of, affect to consider
the deficiency a beauty. The wife of Genghis
Khan was esteemed the most charming woman
in all Tartary because she only had two holes
where her nose should have been.
The peculiar form of the nose seems in fact to
have but little influence upon our likes and dis-
likes. Mirabeau, who had a nose as widespread
as that of a Hottentot, and Gibbon and Wilkes,
whose noses were reduced to barely perceptible
snubs, were very successful suitors of the female
sex. The turn-up nose can not be justified by
any principle of taste, and yet the nez retrousse^
by which French appellation we are fond of dig-
nifying the pug, is so far from diminishing, that
it seems to increase the admiration of man for
the woman who possesses it. l^o heroine of a
modern novel appears complete without the nez
retrousse, and Madame Du Barri, the common
€58 EXPKESSION OF THE NOSE.
town courtesan, owes to it her place in history
by the side of the worthless Louis XV.
There is no part of the physiognomy which
reveals so quickly and clearly ill temper and bad
habits as the nose. Every snarling, discontent-
ed, proud, and envious emotion is accompanied
by a lifting of the end of each nostril through
the agency of a little muscle, which, after fre-
quent action, gives to the nose a permanent turn-
up, which is as repulsive as the snout of an ill-
tempered dog. The nose, moreover, like the
door-post of an old-fashioned inn, scores every
excess of eating and drinking, and so prominent-
ly as to be read by the passer-by.*
* The nose, as is well known, is the organ of smell. For
this purpose it is endowed with a pair of nerves, called the
olfactory, whose abounding filaments pierce the many holes
and cover the multiple surfaces of the light and porous struc-
ture termed the spongy bone, which lies at the root of each
nostril. This peculiar organization is with the object of giv-
ing free entrance to the air, through the medium of which
odor is conveyed to the nerve, in which the sense of smell re-
sides. The act of smelling is performed by closing the mouth
and breathing through the nostrils, which expand to the odor-
ous gale which thus enters and is diffused through every open-
ing and over each surface of the bone where the nerve pene-
trates and expands its closely-woven net of threads. Man is
naturally endowed with an acute sense of smell, but its pow-
er can be greatly increased or diminished by art. Those
whose vocation is among stenches become by practiced indif-
ference almost regardless of them ; and others, whose busi-
THE EYE. 39
The eye is, above all, the glory of the face.
"With it we chiefly express our reverential sub-
ordination to the Deity, and our familiar rela-
tions with man ; see visions of divine beauty in
nature, and catch that light of sympathy by
which we recognize in every human countenance
a brother.
' The eye is especially a social feature, and it
becomes us, therefore, more particularly to guard
and use it with a discreet care. Its beauty, what-
ever may be its natural character, is greatly de-
pendent upon the general health. Any thing
which tends to weaken the powers of the body
aifects more or less the condition of the eye.
ness requires a discriminating nicety of the sense, obtain by
studied attention a marvelous acuteness of smell. There was
a night-man in Berlin who declared that he was not sensible
of the intensest smell of his odoriferous occupation. On the
examination of his body after death no olfactory nerve was
found. Whether this was an original defect, or only the re-
sult of a long and resolute disuse of his sense of smell, could
not be determined. Nature or art had made him the right
man for the right place. The dog and some other animals
have a much acuter sense of smell than man, and we accord-
ingly find in them larger olfactory nerves, and more extensive,
porous, and convoluted spongy bones for the exposure of their
filaments to the odorous breath of the air. A dog, by the
sense of smell, will trace and nose out his master in the most
multitudinous crowd. This proves not only the acuteness of
the smelling power of the animal, but establishes the fact that
each man, as well as every race of men, has a peculiar odor.
40 SHOET-SIGHTEDNESS.
Excess of all kinds is reflected in it at once, and
it is doubtful whether any abuse of the organ it-
self, apart from the application of direct violence,
is so injurious as the inordinate indulgence of the
passions, or the practice of those habits which
enervate and finally destroy the human consti-
tution.
Short-sightedness is not always, as it is often
supposed, a natural defect. It is frequently ac-
quired by the habit in youth of applying the
eyes too closely to the object of vision. Thus
it is not an infrequent result of the practice com-
mon among children of bending their heads too
near to the books they read. This fatal habit
should be carefully guarded against by parents.
Even where there seems to be a natural defect,
it will often yield to a proper regimen of the
eyes. Modern oculists reject the old idea that
it is good for short-sighted people to make con-
stant efibrts to see without artificial aid. Now
it is held to be a judicious proceeding to resort
as early as possible to the use of glasses, which
should be adapted precisely to the wants of the
person. These are only to be recognized by a
patient trial under the direction of an adept in
the art.
Squinting is another defect often attributed
to N^ature, when it is not seldom due to a willful
EYEBROWS AND LASHES. 41
neglect of its laws. Surgeons have abandoned
the operation for this deformity, and as the knife
lias proved useless in eradicating the evil when
formed, it behooves all to be more careful to
prevent its formation. Among the frequent
causes of this ugly defect are some so slight
that they are seldom noticed by those who
have the care of the young. An ill-fitting cap
or bonnet, with a too projecting front, or a loose
ribbon or tape falling from above and dangling
within the field of vision, is often the commence
ing cause of a squint. It is not seldom produced,
also, by neglecting to have the child's hair cut,
which, consequently, is allowed to hang down
and shake loosely above the eyes, which are thus
frequently and irregularly diverted, until their
sight becomes permanently cross.
The eyebrows and lashes can not be much in-
terfered with to their advantage by art. The
regularity and smoothness of the hairs, which
are essential to the beauty of the brow, are
undoubtedly favored by occasional rubbing or
brushing in a uniform direction with a * fine
cloth or soft brush. A solution of sulphate of
quinine has been recommended as a useful aj)-
plication to thin eyebrows. Shaving these or
the lashes is a pernicious practice, and, so far
from improving either, will result in a perverse,
if any, growth at all of new hair.
42 EYELIDS.
Some people, whose two eyebrows have a ten-
dency to unite, are so uneasy at it that they per-
sistently pluck out the approaching hairs. It
may console such to know that such a union
was esteemed a beauty by the ancients ; and Ten-
nyson alludes to this peculiar growth, which was
common to his friend Hallam and to Michael An-
gelo, in these, to many incomprehensible, lines :
"And over thine ethereal eyes
The bar of Michael Angelo."
The eyelashes, which, to be eminently beauti-
ful, should be long and deeply black, are depend
ent greatly upon the general health and the con-
dition of the organs which they adorn and pro-
tect for their good appearance. Any thing which
directly fatigues the eye, or indirectly affects it
by weakening the body, is sure to show its mark
upon the edges of the eyelids. These become
more or less inflamed, reddened, saturated with
tears, and besmeared with a mucous which, thick-
ening and hardening about their roots, finally de-
taches them. The scales or crusts thus formed
should never be torn away with violence, for the
hairs are sure to come with them. The best
mode of removing them is to apply at night a
little cold cream to the edges of the lids of the
closed eye, and in the morning to bathe them
STRAINING THE EYES. 43
with lukewarm milk and water. When these
incrustations become inveterate, means must be
taken to strengthen the general health. The
best local application is the slightest touch of
dilute citrine ointment.
Nothing is worse for the eyes than straining
them to see with an imperfect light, and every
one who cares to preserve their strength and
beauty should avoid using them in the uncer-
tain glimmer of twilight, or in the flicker of a
sputtering tallow candle or ill-trimmed lamp. It
may be well to remind our sentimental readers
that all unnecessary weeping had better be avoid-
ed, for the delights of crying over the jilted Au-
gustus or the broken-hearted Araminta of the
last novel can not be indulged in without risk
to the health and beauty of the eyes.
There is a phase of fashion which the doctors
might call the morbific^ characterized by an af-
fectation of the symptoms of disease. The
younger Dumas, with his phthisical heroines,
as unsound in flesh as^ in morals, is greatly re-
sponsible for the vogue given to the pallid, wan,
hectic, and feeble. We thus find the florid and
robust assuming ill health when they have it
not, and resorting to all kinds of contrivances
to give the face a cast of sickliness, to which a
robust nature has imparted her own freshness
44 A LANGUISHING AIE.
and brightness of color. Among the various ex-
pedients for giving themselves this fashionable
" languishing, dying" air, that of darkening with
a black pigment the orbit of the eye is in com-
mon use by many women. They thus produce
a very fair imitation of what the French call les
yeux ceryieSj and at certain distances the effect is
not unlike that which is intended, but which we
Avould suppose no delicate woman would care to
exhibit so ostentatiously.
It is sometimes the practice to paint the eye-
brows and eyelashes, and even to cloud the eye-
balls by means of ink dropped between the lids.
Kot only does a decorous taste emphatically
condemn these practices, which give unmistak-
able indications of the painted Jezebel, but pru-
dence forbids them. All pigments, even when
applied to the surface of the surrounding parts
of the eye, are dangerous, and nothing like ink
can be dropped upon that delicate organ without
certain mischief. We know of a permanent loss
of sight from paralysis produced by the frequent
use of belladonna to give an unnatural largeness
to the pupil, supposed to be, by some women of
a morbid taste, a sign of languishing beauty.
THE EAK. 45
CHAPTER IV.
The Ear. — How to make it beautiful. — Ear-wax. — Ear-
pulling. — The Mouth. — Its Beauty and Ugliness. — The
Proud Muscle. — The Tongue. — Tongue - scraping. — The
Teeth. — Proper Management. — Use of Tobacco.
The human ear in its more perfect forms is cer-
tainly a beautiful object ; but there is no feature
which is so frequently unattractive. This may
be owing to its neglect in childhood and youth.
Being round the corner, as it were, of the face, it
is apt to be left uncared for, while the front is
more diligently tended. The shape of the ear is
generally deformed in infancy and childhood by
the carelessness of mother or nurse. In adjust-
ing the cap, hat, or bonnet, while every effort is
made to give it as jaunty a setting as possible
upon the head, with the due rakishness of incli-
nation to the right or left, the ears are allowed
to shift as they may for themselves. They thus
are either crumpled up and pressed down irreg-
ularly under the tight rim of the covering of the
head, or squeezed out from their natural resting-
places, and forced into a stuck-out position which
is by no means graceful. The careful mother
46 EXPOSUKE OF THE EAR.
will take the precaution, each time that she puts
on the cap, hat, or bonnet, as it may be, to smooth
down with her gentle hands the ears of her child,
and see that they are held with a slight pressure,
in their proper position, at the sides of the head,
where they ought to snugly nestle. She will thus
probably secure for her offspring a pair of small,
transparent, delicately colored, and thin, shell-
shaped ears such as Nature intended, and escape
those monstrous productions we so often see,
which have been likened, with more or less just-
ness of comparison, to swollen, overripe purple
figs, gigantic oysters, and asinine excrescences.
We can not but protest against the prevailing
style of dressing the hair, which, violently drawn
away from the ears, leaves them exposed in all
their ugly nakedness. In the ancient Greek
statue of female beauty the ear is always par-
tially hidden by the hair. If, in its ideal grace,
it modestly half retires from the sight, it cer-
tainly, in its modern matter-of-fact ugliness,
should conceal itself altogether. We might pos-
sibly be persuaded to make an excej)tion in favor
of a beautiful ear, but we can not be prevailed
upon to accept the exposure of the auricular
monstrosities to be beheld every where. Do
with them what you please, but keep them out
of sight, or, at any rate, do not force their ugli-
STEUCTURE OF THE EAR. 47
ness upon our notice by jingling or glistening
gewgaws.
The ear is a most complicated and delicate
apparatus ; but, fortunately, it is so shut up with-
in the casket of the skull that it can hardly be
disarranged by our negligence or interference.
It has over the openings of its outer to the in-
most ^f its series of winding passages membranes
tightly stretched, like the parchment of a drum,
and these vibrate to every sound, which is con-
veyed from one to the other by a chain of little
bones. These, in turn, transmit the vibration to
threads of nerves, which communicate the sensa-
tion to the brain, and enable the mysterious pow-
er of this organ to form a perception of sound.
As in the case of the military drum, the mem-
branes of the ear, which in fact are called drums,
require for their proper vibration the presence of
air on both sides. This, in case of the ear, is pro-
vided for not only by its external opening, but
by an internal communication with the mouth
and nose. Hence any cause which closes these
inlets to the atmosphere is sure to affect the
hearing. Thus an ordinary cold in the head,
which swells the membrane of the nostrils, aug-
ments their natural discharge, and stuffs them
up, as it were, always produces a certain degree
of deafness. The outer opening to the ear se-
48 CAUSES OF DEAFNESS.
cretes for its protection, and to keep the passage
smooth for the conveyance of sound, a natural
wax. This is apt to accumulate in undue quan-
tity, become hardened, and i3roduce deafness and
a disagreeable ringing sound. A little warm
water squeezed into the ear from a sponge, and
a drop or two of sweet oil let fall into it after-
ward, will generally remove the accumulation.
If not, recourse should be had to the surgeon,
who with a syringe and a blunt instrument will
soon get rid of the uncomfortable dej)Osit. It is
a dangerous practice for persons to be fumbling
about their ears with the ordinary little steel
spoon at the end of the tweezers found in most
dressing-cases. If thrust too far and forcibly
into the ear, it may penetrate or tear its external
drum and seriously damage the hearing. Most
of the cases of prolonged deafness arise from per-
manent destruction of the internal apparatus or
paralysis of the nerves of the ear, and are unfort-
unately beyond the reach of art. The^e are the
incurable cases upon which the quack speculates
with such pecuniary success. His impudent and
lying assertion of power never fails to find a cred-
ulous ear among those who have turned away in
despair from the honest confession of impotency
of the man of science.
Ear -pulling of all kinds, whether in fun or
THIN AND BLUBBER LIPS. 49
earnest, practiced condescendingly or magisteri-
ally, by an emperor in his good, or by a school-
master in his bad humors, is ungracious and dan-
gerous. Children's ears are thus frequently in-
jured, and always distorted, if the pulling is ha-
bitual.
As far as appearance is concerned, it does not
matter much what shape the male mouth may
have, as, with the present style of wearing the
mustache and beard, little of it can be seen. In
the smooth face of woman, however, the form of
the mouth has a great deal to do with its beauty
or ugliness. The standard of taste in regard to
this, as to other features, varies in different na-
tions. The African not only prefers the flat
nose, but the blubber lip ; and Mungo Park, when
traveling on the banks of the Niger, overheard
a conclave of negro native matrons discussing
the possibility of there being in any part of the
world a woman capable of kissing such a shriv-
eled mouth as his European one. Frightful,
however, as were his thin lips, this did not pre-
vent the African maiden from moistening them
in their agony of fevered thirst with a draught
of water from her refreshing gourd. Such was
the triumph of woman's tenderness that it even
overcame her natural disgust.
Though we are far from admiring the African
D
50 LOVELY MOUTHS.
mouth, we consider a certain fullness of the lips
essential to female loveliness. The thin lip,
making no show of a ruddy succulence, seems
to indicate, with a meagreness and acridity of
blood, a cold and sour disposition; and we are
not surprised to read that the shrewish Xan-
tippe, the incompatible spouse of Socrates, was
lean-mouthed.
The most lovable of mouths is given to the
bride by Suckling in his Ballad on a Weddinc;:
*' Her lips were red, and one was thin
Compared to that was next her chin,
Some bee had stung it newly. "
All the poets — and they are supposed to have
the nicest sensibility to female as to other beau-
ty — agree in bestowing a certain fullness and
redness upon the lips of their ideal loves. The
expanding rose-bud is, as is well known, the tra-
ditional comparison :
"Roses are her cheeks,
And a rose her mouth."
The more the line of the upper lip resembles
the form of the classical bow, the more closely it
ajDproaches the ideal of beauty. This potent
Aveapon of Apollo and Cupid, in fact, was mod-
eled from the curve of the mouth, and symbol-
izes, in the eloquence of the one and the love of
the other, the power of words, whether whisper-
BITING THE LIPS. 51
ed in the ear of affection or thundered forth to
the hearing of a multitude.
There is no art potent enough to give the
beauty of symmetry which Nature may have re-
fused to the lips. If they become unnaturally
pale, more or less rouge mixed with beeswax
will give them a deceitful and temporary gloss
of nature. To this daubing our fashionable
dames are constantly obliged to resort, for their
exhausting lives of dissipation impoverish and
decolorize the blood, and the effect is apparent
at once in the blanched lip. A frequent usage,
however, of the lip salve, as it is ingeniously
called, but which is merely a red pigment in
disguise, so inflames, thickens, roughens, and
gives such a peculiar tint to the mouth, that it
has the look of the shriveled, purplish one of a
sick negress.* The habit of biting the lips soon
destroys any grace of form they may have orig-
inally possessed. Madame de Pompadour, while
lamenting the decay of her charms, confessed
that she first began to spoil at the mouth. She
had early acquired the habit of biting her lips in
order to conceal her emotion. " At thirty years,"
says a historian, " her mouth had lost all its stri-
king brilliancy." She, too, began at a very early
* The best wash to give a pleasant taste to the mouth and
odor to the breatli is a weak infusion of mint.
62 THE PKOUD MUSCLE.
period to touch herself up with that paint so fa-
tal to the duration of facial charms, and at court
only dared to show herself by candle-light.
The mouth, supplied with a number of muscles
quick to act at the vaguest command of the w^ill,
is very expressive of the disposition. There is
one little one against whose action we would put
our young damsels on their guard. It is the
same as that which turns up the nostril at the
least emotion of pride, envy, or disgust. It also
at the same time, for it is connected with the
mouth, pulls up its upper lip. The effect of the
frequent exercise of all muscles of the face is to
give a permanent expression according to the
direction of their action. This is more marked
in that of the mouth and nose, called by the an-
cients the musculus superhus^ or ]3roud muscle.
If our pretty girls desire to grow old gracefully,
we would advise them to be chary of the use of
this telltale messenger, for, if his services should
be often availed of, he will be sure to turn up
the nose and lip in permanent disgust of his func-
tions. It is the most distinctive and repulsive
sign of an envious old maid or any other ill-tem-
pered person.
Whatever beauty of form and grace of propor-
tion the human tongue may have, no one but the
possessor is supposed to be cognizant of them.
THE TONGUE. 53
People are not in the habit of thrusting out this
organ to the gaze of others except in illness for
the inspection of the doctor, or in rudeness, to ex-
press contempt of an opponent.
The tongue, however, though not wont to
make a frequent appearance before the public,
demands no less care for the proper performance
of the duties of its private station. Upon its
surface there is apt to gather a fur which is not
easily removed by the ordinary rinsing of the
mouth. There is an instrument of silver, called
a tongue-scraper, which was never absent from
the toilette-cases of our grandams, but is now al-
most obsolete, that is well adapted to this pur-
pose, and should be used every morning to re-
move the covering of thickened mucus which
accumulates in the course of the night. This
fur, if left, gives a sensation of pastiness and full-
ness to the mouth, and not only destroys the del-
icacy of the taste and the disposition for food,
but thickens the voice.
Dr. Holmes, in one of his medical essays, gives
an historical importance to the tongue-scraper.
"I," says he, "think more of this little imple-
ment on account of its agency in saving the col-
ony at Plymouth in the year 1623. Edward
Winslow heard that Massasoit was sick and like
to die. He found him with a houseful of people
54 standish's tongue-sckapee.
about him, women rubbing his arms and legs,
and friends ' making such a hellish noise' as they
probably thought would scare away the devil
of sickness. Winslow gave him some conserve,
washed his mouth, scraped his tongue^ which was
in a horrid state, got down some drink, made him
some broth, dosed him with an infusion of straw-
berry leaves and sassafras root, and had the sat-
isfaction of seeing him rapidly recover. Massa-
soit, full of gratitude, revealed the plot which
had been formed to destroy the colonists, where-
upon the governor ordered Captain Miles Stan-
dish to see to it." The captain did eifectually
" see to it," and stabbing Peckswot, the ringlead-
er, with his own knife, broke up the plot and
saved the colony.
The old-fashioned doctor is apt to trust too
much to the tongue as an indicator of the state
of the stomach, and has often recourse to a se-
vere drench of the remote organ, where a simple
scrape of the near and tangible one would be
more effectual. A mere fur of the tongue should
alarm no one, if unaccompanied by no other indi-
cation of disease ; for, in nine cases out of ten, it
is only a local foulness, easily removed by the
scraper, or destined quickly to disappear through
the natural self-cleansing of the mouth.
The tongue, though its recuperative power is
ABUSE OF THE TONGUE. 55
very great and rapid, as is proved by the quick-
ness and completeness with which a cut, a blis-
ter, or a burn, or any ordinary injury of it will
heal, may become the seat of serious disease by
prolonged irritation. Thus a jagged tooth, the
continued pressure of the pipe-stem, and the end
of the cigar, will produce tedious ulcers of the
tongue, and occasionally deadly cancers.
The tongue has the exclusive credit for func-
tions that do not belong to it. It is not either
the sole organ of language or of taste. The.
throat, with its vocal chords and its palate, and
the nose, with its nerves and its air -passages,
have a large and indispensable share both in
tasting and talking.
The tongue is ordinarily the most abused of
all the organs of sense. While the eye and the
ear merely suffer from neglect, the tongue is la-
boriously perverted. Its nature, by the persist-
ent diligence of a malevolent art, is so totally
changed that its dislikes become likes, and its
likes dislikes. Tobacco, at first spat out with
infinite disgust, is finally fondled with delight
by the enslaved tongue, and the simple food of
nature is rejected for the spiced dishes of art.
The tongue, it must be confessed, as the organ
of material taste, has no very dignified function,
and has reason to withdraw itself from public
56 THE TEETH.
notice. It has been likened to a commissary
general, whose supplies are necessary to the ac-
tion of the other more noble organs, but whose
sword is seldom drawn, while its aspect is by no
means heroic.
The mouth, however distorted its form or pre-
posterous its size, if it only shows a range of
sound and clean teeth, can scarcely be deemed
ugly. There is a wholesomeness of look in a
row of pure white ivories, set regularly in a rim
of ruddy coral, which reconciles the observer to
an otherwise unprepossessing face.
A wholesome condition of the teeth is not only
essential to good looks, but to daily comfort and
permanent health. Chewing of the food, so nec-
essary to a good digestion, can not be properly
performed with weak and diseased masticators,
which are, in fact, the frequent cause of dyspepsia
and other affections of the stomach. Local dis-
eases of the most tormenting kind, such as tic
douloureux and the various painful face, head,
and ear aches, and disorders of the eye, as well
as the fatal cancer and tedious ulcers of the
tongue and lips, are often due to no other cause
than a decayed and ragged tooth.
Though the natural constitution of the body
and the various accidental diseases to which it
is liable may have something to do with the bad
CARE OF TEETH IN YOUTH. 57
condition of the teeth, their ill looks and decay
are generally owing to a neglect of cleanliness.
The mischief is most frequently done at an early
age. In childhood an indifference to personal
appearance, with that disinclination to any effort
which does not bring immediate pleasure, leads
to a disregard of the teeth. This occurs just at
the time when they require the greatest care.
At about eleven years of age most of the per-
manent teeth have taken the place of those of
infancy, which are called the deciduous^ since
they fall away or are absorbed to make room
for others. At this period the child should be
compelled to rub his teeth with a soft brush, and
rinse. his mouth after each meal. These simjDle
means are all that are necessary to purify and
preserve them, provided the child makes no oth-
er use of his teeth than that for which Nature
intended them. The jaws were, of course, never
designed for nut-crackers, and the attempt so to
pervert their purpose must necessarily prove fa-
tal to the teeth. Though no perceptible fracture
may be the immediate result, the tooth undoubt-
edly receives from the shock of each crushed
hickory a seriously dam.aging effect, either to
the nerve, the socket, or the enameled surface
which covers it. With due care of the teeth,
begun in childhood and prolonged through life,
58 BEWAEE OF THE DENTIST.
any person may reasonably calculate upon a set,
if not of handsome, of useful grinders, to the end
of his threescore years and ten.
The decay of the teeth is generally owing to
the action of the acids generated by the fermen-
tation of the particles of food deposited between
them and at their roots during eating. To pre-
vent this, the obvious way is to remove these
deposits after each meal. The French practice
of handing round the toothpicks and mouth-
rinsers at the close of every repast is a good one
for the teeth, though offensive to the fastidious-
ness of our manners. All that we have to say
here is, that the sooner the particles of food are
picked out and washed away, the better. The
fastidious Chesterfield even did not hesitate to
send that son, whom he was striving so labori-
ously to lick into shape, " by way of iN'ew-year's
gift, a very pretty toothpick-case."
People should be on their guard against the
too busy fingers of the dentist, who ought not
to be allowed to file and scrape the teeth merely
for the purpose of giving them an artificial reg-
ularity and whiteness not bestowed by N'ature.
When there is actual decay, then, and not till
then, should he be permitted to make a free use
of his instruments. The tartar which is apt to
gather at the root of the teeth can be kept away
EFFECT OF TOBACCO. 59
by diligent cleaning ; but, if once allowed to ac-
cumulate and harden, it will become necessary
to remove it with a metallic scraper. As a gen-
eral thing, a brush and water, if used sufficiently
often, will be all that are required for cleaning
the teeth. The only article that can be added
with safety is a little good soap, like the English
Windsor.
We are sorry to find that it is the belief of
some dentists that that vilest of nauseous habits,
tobacco-chewing, is favorable to the preservation
of the teeth. This has long been the apology of
our Southern and Western dames for their foul
but favorite practice of dipping or besmearing
their gums and teeth with snuff. Whatever
good tobacco may do directly to the teeth is
more than counterbalanced by the indirect in-
jury they receive from the bodily disorders pro-
duced by the excessive use of this popular weed.
There can be no question that much smoking
is fatal, if not to the soundness of the teeth, to
their good looks, as it stains them with an ashy,
fuliginous color.
60 THE HAND.
CHAPTER V.
The Hand. — Its Beauty and Utility. — How to beautify the
Hand. — Care of the Nails. — Hang-nails. — Snapping of the
Fingers. — Dangers of the Practice. — Warts. — Sweating
of the Hands. — The Foot. — The proper Form of the Shoe.
— The Defects of the fashionable Shoe. — Corns. — Bun-
ions. ^Ingrowth of the Nail. — A terrific Operation. —
Sweating of the Feet.
Sir Charles Bell, the great surgeon and
anatomist, was so impressed with the adaptation
of the hand to the various uses of man, that he
made it the subject of the " Bridge water" trea-
tise he was appointed to write. He could find
no better proof of the manifestation of design on
the part of the Creator throughout the whole
human structure than in that small but most fin-
ished piece of mechanism. The hand is indeed
the most serviceable as well as graceful instru-
ment with which man is endowed. It works so
obediently to the will of its master that there is
nothing within the range of human power that
it can not perform. It records indelibly the
quickest flash of thought, and gives, in a deadly
stroke, terrible expression to the rage of man.
MIGHT OF THE HAND. 61
Such is its flexibility and adaptiveness that it
turns in a moment from a blow to a caress, and
can wield a club or thread a needle with equal
facility.
The hand can not only perform faithfully its
own duties, but, when necessary, will act for
other parts of the human frame. It reads for
the blind, and talks for the deaf and dumb.
Machinery itself is but an imitation of the hu-
man hand on an enlarged scale ; and all the mar-
velous performances of the former are justly due
to the latter. It thus not only thoroughly per-
forms its natural task, but, having the rare qual-
ity of extending its powers, enlarges its scope of
work almost indefinitely. With the steam-en-
gine, made and worked by itself, the human hand
executes wonders of skill and force ; and with
the electric telegraph it, by the gentlest touch,
awakens in an instant the sentiment of the whole
world and makes it kin.
"For the queen's hand," says an elegant writ-
er, " there is the sceptre, and for the soldier's
hand the sword ; for the carpenter's hand the
saw, and for the smith's hand the hammer; for
the farmer's hand the plow ; for the miner's hand
the spade ; for the sailor's hand the oar ; for the
painter's hand the brush ; for the sculptor's hand
the chisel ; for the poet's hand the pen ; and for
62 SMALL AND LAEGE HANDS.
the woman's hand the needle. If none of these
or the like will fit us, the felon's chain should be
round our wrist, and our hand on the prisoner's
crank." The hand was undoubtedly made for
work, and should be used in accordance with its
design.
The labor of the hand, however, esi^ecially
that of the lighter kind, which generally falls to
the lot of woman, ought not to prevent a due at-
tention to the preservation of all the grace and
beauty with which Nature originally endowed
it. The idea is prevalent that absolute small-
ness, without regard to proportion, is essential
to the beauty of a woman's hand. This keeps
many a young girl idle, lest hj work it should
become enlarged. The hand will undoubtedly
increase in size by use ; but, if it only grows in
proportion to other parts of the body, so far from
this being an ugliness, it will be, according to all
the laws of taste, a beauty. Fashion alone can
find grace in a female hand dwarfed of its pro-
portions by depriving it of its natural exercise,
and by pinching it with a too short and narrow
glove. Nothing is uglier, except it be a Chinese
club-foot, to our sight, than those cramped paws
of kid in which our fashionable women delight.
All true artists have such a horror of them that
they avail themselves of every pretext to keep
BEAUTY OF THE FINGEBS. 63
them out of the pictures of their female sitters.
The pinching glove, as generally worn, is not
only excessively uncomfortable, especially in
cold weather, but it permanently deforms the
hand, rendering it lumpy and podgy.
Much can be done by care to beautify the fin-
gers, upon the grace of which depends greatly
the beauty of the whole hand. The natural ta-
pering length of these can only be preserved by
removing from them all pinching manacles of kid
and jewelry. Much of the beauty of the finger
depends upon the proper treatment of the nails.
These, if cut too close, deform the finger-ends
and render them stubby. The upper and free
border of the nail should always be left pro-
jecting a line or so beyond the extremity of
the finger, and be pared only to a slight curve,
without encroaching too much on the angles.
To preserve the half moon, or what the anato-
mists call the lunula^ which rises just above the
root of the nail, and is esteemed so great a beau-
ty, care must be taken to keep down the skin,
which constantly tends to encroach upon it.
This should be done with a blunt ivory instru-
ment, and the growth gently pushed away, but
never cut. By this means, also, the production
of the annoying " hang-nail" will be prevented.
The habit of filing or scraping the nails is fatal
64 BITING NAILS, SNAPPING FINGERS.
to their perfection, as it thickens their substance
and destroys their natural transparency. The
ordinary finger-brush should alone be used for
cleaning and polishing the nails. It is a curious
fact that Rousseau, in his Confessions^ records
the use of this simple instrument, now indispen-
sable to every cleanly person, as proof of the
excessive coxcombry of his friend, the courtly
Grimm. Thus the luxury of one age becomes
the necessity of another.
The ugly habit of biting the nails is fatal to
their beauty. They become excessively brittle
in consequence, not being allowed time to ac-
quire their natural toughness, and, moreover, the
ends of the fingers, being unsupported, turn over,
forming an ugly rim of hard flesh, which will pre-
vent the regular growth of the nail.
The not uncommon practice of snapping the
fingers, as it is termed, is fatal to their good
looks. It stretches and weakens the ligaments,
and so enlarges the knuckles and joints that the
whole hand becomes knotty and of a very un-
sightly appearance.
The wart is an ugly excrescence, but will gen-
erally disappear, especially from the hands of the
young, without any interference. It is better
patiently to await this result than to make use
of the knife or the caustic. The safest of these
SWEATING OF THE HANDS. 65
means is the acetic acid, which may be applied
gently with a camel's-hair pencil, once each day,
to the summit of the wart. Care should be tak-
en to prevent this or any other powerful acid or
caustic which may be used from touching the
surroundings skin. It may be well, for this pur-
pose, to cover the parts about the root of the
wart with wax during the application of the
remedy.
There is a not uncommon affection of the
hands, which the French might gently term an
incommodite^ or an inconvenience, but which is
a serious annoyance to the afflicted. This is
a moist condition, which seems to resist all the
ordinary efforts of absorption. Such hands are
so constantly dripping with humidity that every
thing they wear or touch becomes readily satu-
rated. The glove shows the effect at once in
ugly stains, and the bare hand leaves a blur of
dampness upon every surface with which it may
come in contact. Nothing can be so disagreea-
ble as a grasp with the over-moist hand.
This infirmity is not seldom constitutional,
and, though difficult of eradication, may be
greatly relieved. Whatever tends to strength-
en the body will alleviate, if not entirely rem-
edy, the excessive moisture of the hands. Ex-
ercise in the open air, cold bathing, a generous,
E
66 NO WELL-FOEMED FEET.
but not too stimulating diet, habitual composure
of mind, and perhaps a daily draught of some
mineral water or medicinal dose containing iron,
are the best general means of treatment. The
most effective local applications are the juice
of lemon and starch powder.
It may be doubted whether there exists
throughout the whole civilized world a well-
formed foot. Many exquisites of both sexes
claim admiration for their pedal extremities,
but it is the boots and shoes which cover them
which we are called on to admire. Their feet,
if bared, would present a very great divergence
from the classical ideal of beauty. The firmly-
planted foot, neither too large nor too small, but
justly proportioned to the height and weight it
sustains, the smooth surface and regularly-curved
lines, the distinctness of the divisions and the per-
fect formation of each toe, with its well-marked
separateness, and its gradation of size and regu-
larity of detail to the very tip of the nail, are
now to be seen only in art. In Greek nature
they were found, for the ancient sandal, which
left the foot unfettered, gave freedom to the de-
velopment of its natural grace and proportions.
The modern boot or shoe, with the prevalent no-
tion that every thing must be sacrificed to small-
ness, has squeezed the foot into a lump as knotty
DISTOETION OF THE FEET. 67
and irregular as a bit of pudding-stone, where
the distorted toes are so imbedded in the mass
and mutilated by the pressure that it is impos-
sible to pick them out in the individuality and
comiDleteness of their original forms.
The process of our dames hardly diifers from
that of the Chinese women, whose feet, from the
early age of five years, are so firmly bandaged
that, as they say themselves, they become dead.
The extremity below the instep is forced into a
line with the leg, and two of the toes are bent
under the sole, and the whole kept in this un-
natural and painful position by leathern thongs.
"The Chinese women, rich and poor, are all,"
says the traveler Hue, " lame ; at the extremity
of their legs they have only shapeless stumps,
always enveloped in bandages, and from which
all the life has been squeezed out."
Young Chinese girls who have not been prop-
erly brought up, and acquired the accomplish-
ment of lameness by means of a diligent torture
of their feet from the earliest childhood, find it
no easy matter to get married. This fashion
of little feet is unquestionably most barbarous,
absurd, and injurious to the development of the
physical strength. "But what means," asks the
despairing Hue, " are there of putting a stop to
the deplorable practice? It is decreed by fashion,
bo A PEOPER SHOE.
and who would dare to resist her dictates ?" He
thinks the Europeans have no right to be very
severe ujDon the Chinese. We may say the same
in regard to our American dames, for do they
not daily torture and deform their feet with
tight shoes, and resemble in this respect — with
a difference only in degree — their goat-hoofed
sisters of the Flowery Kingdom ?
As our coarse climate forbids the sandal, and
renders the shoe necessary, care should be taken
to adapt it as perfectly as possible to the natural
conformation of the foot. It should be long and
wide enough to admit of a free play of the toes;
the space between the heel and sole of the shoe
should be firm, and of a curve of the same height
as the natural arch of the foot, while no part of
the artificial covering should be so binding as to
prevent the free action of the muscles and the
circulation of the blood.
The female shoe or boot now in vogue is, in
some respects, very faulty. It has but one good
quality, the square or broadly-rounded tip, which
is conformable to the natural shape of the end of
the foot ; and if not made, as it generally is, too
tight, would be favorable to the free action so
essential to the ease and beauty of the toes. The
arch of the shoe is too high, and, pressing strong-
ly upward, weakens and distorts that of the foot.
A FOOT TO BE KISSED. 69
This defect is increased by an inordinately high
and narrow heel, which is, moreover, brought too
far forward, with a view of giving an artificial
appearance of shortness to the extremity. This
position of the heel toward the centre of the foot
has the same efiect as if the buttress of an archi-
tectural arch was removed from the end to its
middle. It takes away the strength of its nat-
ural prop, and makes it a weakness. It is thus
that our dames, in walking, have a hobbling gait,
as if their feet were poised upon stilts.
The comfort of the foot is only to be secured
by a properly -made shoe, and its beauty pre-
served by a freedom from unnatural constraint.
Where is the modern beauty who would venture
to uncover her feet before a royal admirer, as we
are told Madame de Pompadour did not hesitate
to do ? " That which especially astonished the
king," says her biographer, "was a pair of pretty
bare feet, worthy of marble and the sculptor, in
a pair of the most rustic-looking wooden shoes.
By a coquetry that was almost artless, the pretty
milkmaid (the marchioness was thus disguised)
placed one of her feet upon the outside of the
wooden shoe. The king recognized the mar-
chioness, and confessed to her that, for the first
time in his life, he felt the desire to kiss a pretty
foot."
70 CORNS AND BUNIONS.
Corns and bunions, those disturbers of human
comfort, are not less fatal to grace than to ease.
These ugly and painful excrescences are general-
ly produced by an ill-fitting boot or shoe. Too
much looseness of the covering of the foot, how-
ever, is more apt to beget corns and bunions
than excessive tightness. The clumsy, hob-nailed
shoe of the plowman, " a mile too big," is oftener
a cause than the pinching boot of the exquisite.
The corn and bunion, which are produced by fric-
tion and irregular pressure, are to be permanent-
ly eradicated only by diminishing the one and
equalizing the other. The employment of a skill-
ful and judicious shoemaker, who forms his shoes
to the feet, and not to the caprice of fashion or
of the wearer, will prevent all occasion for con-
sulting the pedicure^ or foot-doctor. If, however,
by any mischance, this best of all preventives
fails us, and for our sins we become afflicted
with corn or bunion, our only resource is surg-
ical treatment. This is simple, and can be ap-
plied by most patients themselves. The excres-
cence must first be pared down with a sharp
knife, and then a piece of amadou, or spunk, as
it is familiarly called, with a hole cut in its cen-
tre as large as the circumference of the base of
the corn, must be thrust over it, and kept in its
place by adhesive plaster. This will equalize
A SEVERE OPERATION. ♦ 7l
the pressure of the boot or shoe, and prevent it
from rubbing upon the affected part.
The tight shoe or boot, too narrowly toed, is
exclusively responsible for that painful affection,
ingroioth of the toe-nail. If treated in time, it
can be easily and simply cured. All that is nec-
essary is to scrape down the nail until it becomes
quite thin, and then cut the projecting edge of it
in a semilunar form, with its concavity looking
outward from the foot. The nail of the great toe
should always be thus pared, care being taken
not to clip the angles. This causes it to grow
tow^ard the centre, and shrink from the tender
flesh at the sides.
If the affection has been allowed by neglect 16
become inveterate, the surgeon must be called in,
and he will probably resort to an operation, which,
though almost bloodless, is considered one of the
most painful of surgery. So painful, indeed, was
it known to be, that a famous Parisian surgeon,
Velpeau, was in the habit, before the discovery
of chloroform, of passing a bandage around the
toe, and directing a strong assistant to tighten
it with all his might, in order to dull somewhat
the sensibility of the part. Chloroform now hap-
pily fulfills the blessed service for the rendering
of which this awkward process was barely a pre-
text. Though the operation has thus become
72 SWEATING FEET.
painless to the insensible patient, it has lost none
of its horror to the spectator. The surgeon,
grasping the toe, thrusts the sharp-pointed blade
of a pair of scissors under the nail as far as it will
go, and then, cutting it in two, tears out each
half with a pair of pincers from the quivering
flesh in which it has been long imbedded. No
one, not even the slave of fashion, should submit
to any form of the boot or shoe other than the
broad-toed, Avhich is fortunately now in vogue.
The foot, like the hand, is subject to the in-
firmity of excessive perspiration. It is to be
remedied by the same general and local treat-
ment. The habitual daily washing of the feet
♦should be with cold rather than Avith warm
water, and a powder of starch or arrowroot,
which it would be well to perfume with bitter
almonds, orris, or some other no more intrusive
odor, should be sprinkled in the inside of the
stockino^.
POWER OF EXPRESSION AND ACTION. 73
CHAPTER VI.
The Power of Expression and Action. — Freedom and Grace.
— A Talleyrand and a Rustic Antinous. — Lord Chester-
field's awkward Man. — Too much Interference. — A whole-
some Neglect. — Ugly Tricks of Expression and Gesture.
— A wriggling Nose. — The Success of ugly Men. — Sub-
mission to the Laws of Nature. — A modern Beauty con-
fronted with the Venus of Milo. — Excessive Fatness and
Thinness. — How to be Cured. — Deformities the Result of
bad Management in Childhood. — Dancing. — Proper Ex-
ercise. — Mind and Body. — Freedom from Restraint.
It is true that regularity of feature and just-
ness of proportion are essential to the perfection
of grace. It is, however, no less true that ex-
pression, action, and the general carriage of the
person have more to do with the figure a man or
woman may make in society than any original
conformation of body. The laborer stripped to
his work in the field may show a form like that
of an Antinous, but, placed in the drawing-room
by the side of a shriveled, limping Talleyrand,
no one would fail to recognize the superior ele-
gance .of the cultivated but naturally ill-favored
Frenchman. The rustic Antinous, however, if
surveyed among his native clods, will probably.
74 A BEAUTIFUL OBJECT.
as he follows the plow or rests upon his spade,
show a natural grace of motion and attitude to
which his laced and ruffled victor of the draw-
ing-room could make no pretensions. On his
own ground and in the performance of his habit-
ual functions the laborer is at his ease, and each
limb and muscle doing its allotted duty fully
and freely, his whole well-proportioned frame ex-
hibits all its natural grace. Transferred to the
drawing-room, he feels the constraint of strange-
ness, and with the blankness of clownish amaze-
ment upon his face, and stiffness in his joints,
the graceful Antinous of the plow becomes an
inert monstrosity of human flesh.
There is no more beautiful object in nature
than a healthy, well-formed child sporting in the
freedom of infancy and innocence. Let it be,
however, suddenly placed in the company of
strangers, and mark how awe* shadows the face,
* Hogarth, in his Analysis of Beauty^ notices this effect
upon children of the awe produced by the presence of stran-
gers. He says : * ' It is the cause of their drooping and draw-
ing their chins down into their breasts, and looking under their
foreheads as if conscious of their weakness or of something
wrong about them. To prevent this awkward shyness, par-
ents and tutors are continually teasing them to hold up their
heads, which if they get them to do, it is with difficulty, and,
of course, in so constrained a manner that it ^ves the chil-
dren pain, so that they naturally take all opportunities of eas-
ing themselves by holding down their heads, which posture
FREEDOM OF MOTION. 75
and constraint perverts every natural motion of
its flexible body to distorted action.
A sense of ease is essential to a graceful car-
riage of the person, and this is chiefly to be ac-
quired by habitual freedom of motion. All con-
straint is therefore fatal to it, and none more so
than that which comes from the strangeness of
a novel position. Grace of bearing in society is
almost impossible without frequent association
with peo^Dle of renned manners. "Awkward-
ness," says Lord Chesterfield, " can proceed but
from two causes : either from not having kept
good company, or from not having attended to
it ;" and he show^s the eflect in this expressive
picture : " When an awkward fellow first comes
into a room, it is highly probable that his sword
would be full as uneasy to them were it not a relief from re-
straint ; and there is another misfortune in holding down the
head, that it is apt to make them bend too much in the back ;
when this happens to be the case, they then have recourse to
steel collars and other iron machines, all which shacklings
are repugnant to nature, and may make the body grow crook-
ed. This daily fatigue, both to the children and parents, may
be avoided, and an ugly habit prevented, by only (at a proper
age) fastening a ribbon to a quantity of plaited hair, or to
the cap, so as it may be kept fast in its place, and the other
end to the back of the coat, of such a length as may prevent
them drawing their chins into their necks ; which ribbon will
always leave the head at liberty to move in any direction but
this awkward one they are apt to fall into. "
76 THE AWKWARD MAN.
gets between his legs and throws him down, or
makes him stumble, at least. When he has re-
covered this accident, he goes and places him-
self in the very place of the whole room where
he should not. There he soon lets his hat fall
down, and, in taking it up again, throws down
his cane ; in recovering his cane, his hat falls a
second time, so that he is a quarter of an hour
before he is in order again. If he drinks tea or
coffee, he certainly scalds liis mouth, and lets
either the cup or the saucer fall, and spills the
tea or coffee on his breeches. At dinner his
awkwardness distinguishes itself particula'rly,
as he has more to do ; there he holds his knife,
fork, and spoon differently from other people,
eats with his knife, to the great danger of his
mouth, picks his teeth with his fork, and puts
his spoon, which has been in his throat twenty
times, into the dishes again. If he is to carve,
he can never hit the joint, but, in his vain efforts
to cut through the bone, scatters the sauce in
ejerj body's face. He generally daubs himself
with soup and grease, though his napkin is com-
monly stuck through a button-hole and tickles
his chin. When he drinks he infallibly coughs
in his glass and besprinkles the company. Be-
sides all this, he has strange gestures, such as
sniffing up his nose, making faces, putting his
NIMIA DILIGENTIA. 77
fingers in his nose or blowing it, and looking
afterward in his handkerchief, so as to make the
company sick. His hands are troublesome to
him when he has not something in them, and lie
does not know where to put them, but they are
in perpetual motion between his bosom and his
breeches. lie does not wear his clothes, and, in
short, does nothing like other people."
Though it is by the example of good company
that the outward graces are chiefly to be acquired,
there is undoubtedly something to be learned
from precept. Here, however, we w^ould put par-
ents and those who have the control of the young
on their guard against the nimia diligentia — the
too great diligence, or excessive interference with
nature, so emphatically denounced by the Roman
satirist. The overbusy finger is nowhere more
apparent than in the physical rearing of children,
who are apt to be regarded merely as lumps of
clay, to be fashioned at the will of their parents.
They are, however, it should be recollected, liv-
ing beings, with an inherent principle of growth
which is to be developed. The main purpose of
education should be to educe this original ele-
ment, and allow it all the expansion of which it
may be capable. It is, however, too often the
practice of parents to do the reverse, and try to
mould their children into forms of which Nature
has given no indication.
78 FREEDOM IN YOUTH.
The artificial process begins as soon as the
child is born. The very swaddling-clothes are
so many bonds by which it is restrained of the
natural freedom of its body, and its growth so
directed that it may assume a shape conforma-
ble to some conventional notion or other. This
continues from infancy upward, and the dress is
a constant obstacle to the natural development
of the physical structure. Until the mother gets
rid of the idea o^ giving a form to her child, and
learns that it is her duty to accept what Nature
bestows, the health and vigor of whole gener-
ations will continue to be sacrificed. In early
youth the great essential of physical development
is freedom. The clothes, accordingly, should be
so loose as to allow of the freest play of the very
flexible body and limbs of infancy and childhood.
In the cut of their garments no regard should be
had to any fashion or notion of taste which may
interfere with ease of movement. It is particu-
larly important that there should be no obstacle
in early life to the natural growth, for at that pe-
riod the human structure is composed of a soft
and pliable material, which may be made to as-
sume almost any shape, however perverted ; and
a deformity thus and then produced will remain
a deformity forever.
The over-anxiety of fastidious mothers in re-
CONSTRAINED POSTUEES. 79
gard to the manners of their children leads also
to an interference with their grace and vigor of
growth. Romping boys and girls are often
checked for being noisy, while they should be
encouraged. Their racing and shouting are in-
stinctive efforts at development, and essential to
the strength of lung and muscle. Those who
are unable to bear the noise of children are un-
fit to have or take charge of them.
The lengthened silence and constrained pos-
tures imposed by most school-teachers upon their
youthful pupils are as inhuman as they are ab-
surd. Let any grown person, in the possession
of all his maturity of strength and power of will,
place himself or hold a limb in any fixed po-
sition, and see how long he can do either. The
action, however easy at first, is soon, if perse-
vered in, followed by weariness and pain. There
is only a single posture — that of lying at full
length — which can be borne unchanged for a
long time. All other positions of the body and
limbs being assumed contrary to gravity, and
consequently costing an effort of will and mus-
cle, soon become wearisome, and finally impossi-
ble. Muscular action requires variety for relief
It is contrary to nature, therefore, for teachers
and parents to enforce fixed positions upon their
pupils and children. " Hold up your heads !"
80 UGLY TRICKS.
"Sit Straight !" "Keep down your hands !" "Don't
lean on your elbows !" " Don't bend your knees
in walking !" and the other importunate com-
mands so often heard in the nursery and school-
room, are not seldom harmful interferences with
natural action. Nature, after all, is the best
posture-master, and gives lessons not only of
health, but of genuine grace. Let parents and
teachers be less busy, and leave their children's
bodies and limbs at least to their natural move-
ments and attitudes. Such an abstinence of
interference may appear to careful mothers a
neglect, but we assure them that it would be a
wholesome neglect.
An awkward carriage or a graceless action,
however, may become permanent from careless-
ness in allowing the young to persist in ugly
tricks of attitude, gesture, or expression until
they are fixed into habits. There are many of
the most ofiensive practices which can be traced
to no other origin than this. We knew an emi-
nent lawyer who had the ugly habit of wriggling
his nose in such a manner that, though an ora-
tor of unquestionable poAver, it was difficult to
check the disposition to laugh even during his
most serious efforts of eloquence, for his unfor-
tunate proboscis seemed always to become ex-
cited with the increasing warmth of his rhet-
UGLINESS AND GRACE. 81
oric, and sympathetically to move in quickened
action with the hurried flow of his words. This
unfortunate nasal wriggle was the result of a
trick assumed for diversion in childhood, but so
often played that it became a habit too inveter-
ate for control.
Though any great deviations from the aver-
age size of the human figure or features do not
accord with the general notion of beauty and
justness of proportion, it is wiser, as well as more
decorous, to submit gracefully, than to make fu-
tile attempts to hide or correct them. The short-
ness of Chesterfield, the fatness of Fox, and the
lameness of Talleyrand did not prevent them
from shining as exemplars of grace and courte-
sy. Three of the ugliest men who ever lived,
Mirabeau, Wilkes, and Burr, had so far the pow-
er of pleasing that few have ever equaled them
in gaining the favors of the most beautiful wom-
en.
As no one of common decency will refer to the
natural infirmity of any person, so the afflicted
should make no allusion to it, as is too often done,
for they only show, while pretending to indifier-
ence, an excessive susceptibility.
Good sense, and, therefore, good taste, for they
are inseparably united, dictate submission to the
laws of Nature. All interference, consequently,
F
82 A COMPARISON.
with the natural organization of the body should,
as a general rule, be avoided.
Women have been so often and emphatically
reminded of the dangers of tight lacing that it
is marvelous that they should persist in a prac-
tice which they all must know to be at the risk
of their lives. Nothing can better show the
power of arbitrary Fashion than the subjection
of its slaves to this torture of the frame, as fa-
tal to beauty as to health. In reducing the
centre of the body to an almost impalpable
tenuity, while they laboriously strive, by bulg-
ing cottoUj crinoline, and outworks of whalebone
and wire, to give an unnatural fullness to other
parts of the figure to which Nature has refused
its fair share of substance, they set at defiance
all the laws of proportion. As we stood admir-
ing that most perfect conception of female grace,
the Venus of Milo, in the Louvre, we took from
the fair woman hanging to our arm her pocket-
handkerchief, and made a comparative measure-
ment of the ancient and modern beauties. This
was the result : the waist of the statue measured
32 inches in circumference, and the foot 11 inches
in length. The waist of the living woman could
barely, with all the aid of corset and the various
layers of dress, expand to a circumference of 24
inches, while her foot, with shoe and all, was less
AFRICAN TASTE. 83
than 9 inches in length.* With these special
diminutions, the modern beauty, however, was
by no means generally of dwarfish proportions,
and might, within her crinoline and Parisian
width of drapery, have enveloped a whole brood
of Yenuses.
There are certain conditions of the human
frame which are due to artificial habits of life.
An excessive fatness or meagreness may, for ex-
ample, be produced by the diet or regimen. In
such a case it is obviously not improper to alter
them, if thereby the undesirable state of the
body can be modified. If over-eating or over-
drinking bloats the face and expands unduly
the girth, it is undoubtedly right to qualify the
strength of the wine and curtail the length of
the dinner- courses. People, however, who are
constitutionally fat or thin, will find the attempt
to shrink or expand themselves seldom success-
ful, and not always safe.
A certain plumpness is essential to the beauty
of the female form ; but its excess is not consid-
ered with us, at least, as an addition to the charms
of woman. Africa alone, of all nations — though
Turkey has a leaning that way — sets up fatness
as a standard of beauty. Cuffey expands female
* These measurements are in proportion to a length of
stature of 5 feet 4 inches, which was that of the living person.
84 CAUSE OF FATNESS.
loveliness beyond the limits of the embrace of
any ordinary mortal, lards it with layers of fat,
like a plump partridge prepared for the spit, and
feasts his dainty imagination upon the oleaginous
charms of female blubber. The Hottentot Yenus
suckled her young over her shoulder, and carried
the rest of her family upon her natural bustle. It
is not often that our women, who are generally
too nimble in mind and body for its accumula-
tion, complain of fat. Some people, however,
have a great tendency to it. This is often he-
reditary, and shows itself in childhood. There
are certain circumstances, moreover, which great-
ly favor the development of fatness, whether orig-
inal or acquirc;.d. Such are a sedentary life, hab-
its of indulgence, want of light, frequent and pro-
longed slumber, and physical and moral indo-
lence. A life of wantonness and idleness is said
to be the cause of the plumpness of the women
of the East, and there is no reason why it should
not have the same effect upon those of the West.
The food, however, has more influence than
any thing else upon the plumpness of the body,
and the effect of quality is greater than that of
quantity. Bread, butter, milk, sugar, potatoes,
beer, and all spirituous liquors, are particularly
fattening. The women of Senegal expand to an
extraordinary degree of plenitude, in the course
CUEE OF FATNESS. 85
of a few months only, by gorging themselves
with fresh dates. Any woman who is troubled
with a superfluity of fat, and wishes to get rid of
it, can succeed by persevering in a certain diet
and regimen. She must live in a warm and dry
climate, avoid those articles of diet which are
especially fat-producing, and eat those which are
not, with a plentiful supply of acids, lead an act-
ive life, with brisk exercise both of body and
mind, lie on a hard bed, and never remain on it
long. To these may be added, with advantage,
frequent rubbing of the body with a rough towel
or brush, an occasional laxative, alkaline, sea, and
vapor baths, with shampooing or kneading of the
flesh. Iodine has been occasionally given and
found useful. Banting, an Englishman, at the
age of sixty-six years reduced himself from two
hundred and two pounds (202 lbs.) to one hun-
dred and fifty-six (156 lbs.) in twenty days by
the following diet and regimen : For breakfast,
4 or 5 ounces of beef, mutton, kidneys, bacon, or
cold meat of any kind, with the exception of fresh
pork ; a large cup of tea, without sugar or milk,
a small biscuit, or an ounce weight of toast. For
dinner, 5 or 6 ounces of fish (no salmon) or meat
(no fresh pork) ; all kinds of vegetables except
potatoes ; an ounce of toast ; the fruit, but not
the paste of a tart ; poultry, game ; two or three
S6 THINNESS.
glasses of good claret, sherry, or Madeira, but no
Champagne, j)ort wine, or beer. For tea, 2 or 3
ounces of fruit, about an ounce of toast, and a
cup of tea without sugar or milk. For supper,
3 or 4 ounces of such meat or fish as at dinner,
with one or two glasses of claret. Before going
to bed, if required, a glass of claret or sherry.
This plan of Banting has been tried again and
again with advantage, and without the least un-
favorable accident.
If there are some persons who are anxious to
get rid of fat, there are many more, particularly
in our country, who are desirous of acquiring it.
Thinness is by no means the sign of a bad con-
stitution. On the contrary, it often belongs to
the most vigorous of our race. There are, more-
over, some chaiming women, who, though en-
dowed with every other personal attraction, are
destitute of that fullness essential to the perfec-
tion of the female form. Such, instead of griev-
ing over an organic defect, and resorting to use-
less and often injurious means to remedy it,
should console themselves wi4ih their natural
fineness of structure, lightness of movement, and
the use of such resources as are furnished by a
skillful toilet. A regular life, great moderation
in pleasure, the avoiding of all social and other
dissipation, moderate exercise, light occupation,
CAUSE AND CUEE OF THINNESS. 87
freedom from nervous excitement, plenty of sleep,
and a tranquil and contented spirit, will tend to
give flesh to the most meagre. To these must
be added a generous diet of meat, vegetables,
farinaceous food of all kinds, and a moderate
quantity of beer or wine. Fresh milk, taken
early in the morning, is said to have a very fat-
tening effect, and frequent warm baths, either
simple or emollient, are indispensable.
Dr. Cazenave says that there is nothing more
likely to produce excessive thinness than im-
moderate love, and especially jealousy. Saint
Augustine, as quoted by Fenelon, in his treatise
on the education of girls,^ays : " I have seen a
baby in arms jealous ; it could not pronounce a
single word, and already regarded with a pale
face and angry eyes another infant who was be-
ing suckled at the same time with it." This in-
fantile jealousy is said to be a not uncommon
cause of the wasting away of the youngest chil-
dren. Care, therefore, should be taken to avoid
exciting this pernicious passion by a just dis-
tribution of care and caress among brothers and
sisters.
Ugly deformities are not seldom the result of
placing children at the table in chairs of unsuit-
able height. If the chair is too low, the arms
are raised so high as to cause an unsightly ele-
6b UGLY GAIT.
vation of the shoulders, and a consequent sink-
ing, as it were, of the head. Should the chair,
on the contrary, be too high, there must be a
bending of the neck and upper part of the body,
which, if the cause continues long enough, will
finally produce a permanent stoop of the shoul-
ders. The chair of the child should be of just
the height to bring the eU^ows, in their natural
position, to a level with the table. A too yield-
ing seat, moreover, is bad, as it permits the sink-
ing of the head between the shoulders, and a
general drooping of the body. A firm wooden
bottom, or, if not easily borne, a carefully stufi*-
ed hair cushion shoijrid be su]3plied, and so ar-
ranged that it may be raised or depressed to
adapt it to the size of the child, or the position
of the chair at a table or elsewhere. The lifting
or suspension of children by leading-strings is
apt to cause that ugliest of deformities, the sink-
ing of the neck between the shoulders.
An ugly gait is often acquired in childhood,
which may continue throughout life, by the habit
which careless or impatient ]3arents or nurses
have of dragging along the little ones they are
conducting, and forcing their toddling steps to
keep pace with their own striding walk.
In old times dancing was regarded not only
as an elegant accomplishment, but as the only
DANCING. 89
means for acquiring the fine and graceful gait
suitable for the genteel walks of life. Locke, in
his Treatise on Education, says : " Dancing, be-
ing that which gives graceful motion to all our
limbs, and, above all things, manliness, and a be-
coming confidence to young children, I think can
not be learned too early. Nothing appears to
me to give children so much confidence and be-
havior, and so to raise them to the conversation
of those above their years, as dancing."
^o one, we suppose, in these liberal days,
strenuously opposes dancing if properly regu-
lated, which it seldom is. Our young folks, en-
couraged by their genteel mammas, cultivate it
as diligently as if they thought, with the danc-
ing-master in Moliere's comedy, that, though phi-
losophy might possibly be somethmg, there was
nothing so necessary to mankind as dancing. It
is well, perhaps, that our little masters and miss-
es should subject their flexible feet and limbs to
a course of lessons under the fiddle-bow of the
dancing-master, and keep themselves in training
by an occasional quadrille or waltz. They may
thus learn to walk their genteel parts in life with
a more assured ease and grace. We can not,
however, see the necessity of dancing the Ger-
man from midnight to four o'clock in the morn-
ing, six days out of the seven of each week. On
90 UNHEALTHY DANCING.
the contrary, it is quite apparent to us that this
is an excess which is wholesome neither for body
nor mind. It is debauchery, not social enjoyment;
and, while it may be favorable to freedom of com-
munion and ease of manners, is conducive neither
to a graceful address nor a decorous behavior.
Dancing is a gentle exercise, favorable to the
health and graceful development of the body,
but, like all physical exercises, must be pursued
at seasonable times, and under such circum-
stances as are dictated by nature, or it will be-
come hurtful. With every additional move-
ment of the limbs the respiration is increased,
and the lungs take in a larger supply of air ;
and this, if not pure, will act upon the system
with the virulence of a poison. We need hard-
ly say, what Inust be obvious to every one who
has breathed it, that the atmosphere of the
crowded ball-room is not in the condition suit-
able to health. The apartment is necessarily
closed to the severe cold of the winter, and each
one of the dense throng which usually gather^,
at these fashionable dancing-parties is breathing
fast under the general agitation of the dance and
excitement. The pure air which may have at
first existed is sucked up at once, and all, having
eagerly consumed the vital element of oxygen it
possesses, send it back with the poisonous con-
FASHIONAELE DANCING. OJ
stituent of carbonic acid gas. The whole room
thus soon becomes filled with an atmosphere so
vitiated that to breathe the least of it is inju-
rious, and certainly the less of it taken in by the
human lungs the better. The dancers, however,
by their quickened motion and necessarily in-
creased respiration, are absorbing the most of
the poison, while at the same time each one is
adding to its virulence. When the air is impure,
the greater safety is in repose than in movement.
Better no exercise at all than exercise in a poi-
sonous atmosphere, such as must be breathed by
our party-going beaux and belles six nights of
the week out of the seven.
The exercise of dancing under these circum-
stances becomes a source, as we all know, of
prostration and ill health. No frequenter of the
crowded ball will pretend that he or she, after
a long night's indulgence in its debaucheries,
sleeps more soundly, awakes more refreshingly,
and resumes the duties or labors of the day with
a lighter step and a livelier spirit. The looks
are certainly not improved. Whatever, there-
fore, may be said in favor of fashionable dancing
as a social element, it can not be justified as an
exercise favorable to the health or beauty of the
body.
The best physical discipline is to be found in
92 PLEASURE WITH EXERCISE.
regular and cheerful exercise in the open air.
Those sports, which are often termed manly, but
are no less womanly, as riding, boating, ball-
playing, and brisk walking, are the best means
of not only giving strength to the body, but en-
duing it with grace of form and motion.
Such is the intimate relation betAveen the body
and mind that it is impossible to do any good to
either unless the actions of both are kejDt in har-
mony. This truth is well demonstrated by the
utter uselessness of all physical exercise for
health's sake, and, we may say, for beauty's sake
too, imless accompanied by a wholesome mental
activity. Let any one, while depressed in mind,
test his muscular power, and he will soon find
how little able and disposed he is to use it. On
the other hand, if he exerts his physical strength
when under the animating influence of pleasur-
able emotions, he is scarcely conscious of the ef-
fort. If physical exercise is persisted in with the
indisposition and incapacity for it that come from
mental depression, the result is an excessive pros-
tration, which is, of course, injurious to the health
of the body. On the contrary, the exertion of the
muscular force, stimulated and supported by a
cheerful mind, can be continued almost indefi-
nitely, with the good efiect of giving increased
vigor to the whole human system.
PROPER EXERCISE. 93
All plans of exercise should be based upon a
regard to the harmonious action of mind and
body. The solitary " constitutional" walk, as it
is called, taken for health's sake, is of no benefit,
for it can be seldom varied, and does not supply
diversion tt) the mind, which continues to fret
itself and weary the body. Horseback exercise
is much superior, for the reason that in the man-
agement of the beast there is necessarily a con-
stant call upon the attention which keeps the
mental faculties occupied, and thus relieves them
of all depressing and exhausting influences.
Those sports requiring physical efibrt and the
open air are excellent for health, as they occupy
the mind pleasurably at the same time that they
exercise the body. It is surprising how much
work can be got out of the muscles when stimu-
lated to action by agreeable emotion. When
the mind is cheerful, and thus emancipated from
ca^re, the limbs become freer of movement, and
of course all the motions and attitudes are more
unconstrained and graceful. A child will run,
and climb, and tumble, and shout, and indulge
in boisterous effort of all kinds the whole day,
describing in his vagaries endless lines of beau-
ty, apparently without any fatigue, while en-
gaged in play with his fellows ; but let him take
the shortest and most composed walk with an
94 BOOTS OF lEON.
elder, and he will hardly step a dozen paces be-
fore he begins to lag back in weariness.
The great point to be considered in any plans
of exercise for the sake of health and grace is
the intimate alliance between body and mind,
and the necessity of providing simultaneously
for the occupation of both. It matters little how
the muscles are put into action ; but that form
of physical exercise is the best which is accom-
panied by the most agreeable mental emotions.
Pleasant company will give a refreshing, whole-
some, and graceful effect to a long walk, which,
if taken alone, would only be stiff, wearisome, and
weakening.
It is a mistake to suppose that by any kind of
fixed physical restraint the human figure can be
moulded into beauty, or its movements turned
to grace. The surgeon nowadays condemns en-
tirely the bands, stocks, and torturing collars,
and boots of iron, with which it was once the
custom to strive in vain to bend and twist the
youthful twig, and give it a desirable growth of
manly or womanly grace. Where there is even
a natural deformity, as, for example, in the com-
mon bandy leg, it is found that it is more likely
to be righted if left to the natural movement
and growth of the body than if controlled by ar-
tificial means.
A REMEDY FOR CROOKEDNESS. 95
The straiglitness of the trunk of the body of
the negro woman of our country and the peas-
ant of Germany has often been noticed, and may
be attributed perhaps to the habit common to
both of carrying weights upon the head. Where
there is a tendency in young girls to a stoop in
the shoulders, it may be well to cause them to
balance frequently upon their heads a book, or
some other object, taking care, however, that it
shall not be too heavy, for the excessive loads
borne by the German women, though they nec-
essarily give straightness to the back, produce
deformity in other parts.
96 AMERICAN EASE.
CHAPTER YII.
American Ease. — Propriety of Posture. — A well-bred Person
not Demonstrative.— ^Fuss. — Its Discomforts and Indeco-
rousness. — The Free and Easy. — The Prim. — Fault of the
American Walk. — ^Inelegant Attitudes and Gestures.
With all the faults of manner of the American,
no one would think of charging him with a want
of ease. Generally feeling at home wherever he
goes, he is as apt to be " hale fellow w^ell met"
with the king on his throne as with the lackey
at the palace door. He is not likely to be taken
to account for too much stiffness of body and for-
mality of address. His facility of converse and
flexibility of limb are proverbial, and few can
equal him in expansiveness of sprawl, reach of
boot, and readiness of "jaw." He is unapproach-
able as an acrobat, and his fine chair balance, or
trick of heels up and head down, can not be sur-
passed by any performer on the social stage.
When he presents himself, he is not unlike the
clown of our early remembrance, who came with
a run, a spring, a somersault, and the shout " Here
I am !"
We think that many of our countrymen and
SPRAWLING. 97
countrywomen might be improved by more re-
serve of manner and less flexibility of limb.
Americans can dispense with much freedom of
movement and looseness of posture, as indeed of
ease of address, without any risk of incurring the
imputation of being prigs. In society ordinarily
termed good, it is not customary to sit upon
more than one chair at a time, nor is the mantel-
piece regarded as the proper place for the feet,
however well turned the boot or delicately made
the shoe. Sprawling of all kinds is avoided by
well-bred people, who shun excessive ease as
much as excessive formality. It may not be
amiss to remind the heedless and the young
that, on entering the room of the house of a
stranger or that of a visiting acquaintance, it is
not becoming to throw themselves at once on
the sofa and stretch out their legs, or into the
Voltaire or easy-chair, and sink iato its luxu-
rious depths. The common seat will be select-
ed by the considerate, and all the exceptional
provisions for extra ease and comfort left un-
touched until the invitation to enjoy them is
given.
A well-bred person is ordinarily disinclined to
make a public demonstration of his most afiec-
tionate feelings and tenderest sentiments. He
therefore rarely kisses, weeps, embraces, or sighs
G
98 FUSS.
before strangers or formal acquaintances. Fuss
is, above all things, his horror, and he strives to
check every noisy or uneasy indication of emo-
tion and passion.
It has always been considered by the best-bred
people that fuss of any kind was inconsistent with
good manners. The English aristocracy, howev-
er uuAvorthy of imitation in some respects many
may deem them, are universally regarded as safe
examples to follow in all matters of ceremonious
behavior. Well, there is nothing a " My Lord"
or "My Lady" so studiously avoids as fuss.
• Quietness in all things is an essential element
of a well-bred English person. He shuns all out-
ward display of his personality. He cares not
to be seen or heard, and rests content with being
felt as a power in the land. He thus not only
eschews noisy and grandiloquent talk, but all
showy and nf)ticeable costume. His voice is low,
his words simple, his action grave, and his dress
plain. He holds himself so habitually under con-
straint that his nerves never seem to vibrate
with emotion. He becomes, as it were, an im-
passible being, upon whom no external cause
seems capable of making an impression.
We do not wish to hold up the Lord Dun-
drearys as models to our republican citizens to
mould themselves by. The unemotional English-
FUSS FATAL TO COMFOKT. 99
man, in his excess of impassibility, is a cold, un-
feeling person, and only interesting as a humor-
ous exaggeration in a farce. We do not desire
that our red-hot enthusiasts should be cooled
down to the extreme degree of that frigid John
Bull who could look into the crater of Mount Ve-
suvius and see " nothing in it," or quietly scan
with his glass a drowning fellow-mortal, and re-
fuse to lend him a helping hand because he had
never been introduced to him. There is a wide
range of the moral thermometer between the
zero of English frigidity and the usual high de-
gree of American ebullition.
There is this obvious advantage in habitually
checking the tendency to excitement, that we
acquire such a control over our emotions that, in
cases of emergency, our reason is left free to act.
The film of feeling is removed from the eye, and
the nature of the danger is clearly discerned. An
excited person is always moving in a fog, and he
may at any time plunge into a quagmire or fall
headlong down a precipice.
Fuss is a great obstacle to comfort. Its effect
is not only to heighten the unavoidable miseries
of life, but to create unnecessary ones. Its in-
fluence is chiefly apparent in the small annoy-
ances of daily existence. The heavy strokes of
fate fall with such a crushing force upon the
100 A FUSSY HOUSEKEEPER.
sensibility that it becomes at once too prostrate
to be capable of fuss. Grief subdues and makes
silent, but vexation excites and creates noise.
It is astonishing how much misery — small,
perhaps, in detail, but immense in the aggregate
— is voluntarily imposed upon self and others by
fussy people. Take, for example, the grossly
exaggerated if not entirely simulated maladies
which the fashionable doctors tell us form two
thirds of their cases. What a fuss is made by
the pretended victims ! and who can measure
the degree of real suffering they inflict upon
others ? How often are whole families, and even
communities, made miserable by these chronic
complainers, who not seldom survive long enough
to worry out of existence several generations
by unnecessary fuss 1
Fuss is vulgarly supposed to be essential to a
good housekeeper. It is not really so, for quiet
is as necessary to excellence of housewifery as
smoothness of work to goodness of machinery.
It is quite a mistake to suppose that the una-
voidable misery of " washing day" is more ef
fectually got over by fussing about it the whole
week before and after. It is no less so to imag-
ine that the necessary evil of house-cleaning, or
pickling, or any other domestic trial of period-
ical occurrence, is to be endured more patiently
AMERICAN FLEXIBILITY. 101
by twelve months of daily anticipatory fussing.
We doubt, moreover, whether we get a perfect
and agreeable idea of cleanliness when constant-
ly reminded, by the ever-present wet clouts,
scrubbing-brushes, soap-suds, bare floors, and un-
carpeted staircases, of the ceaseless eiforts of a
fussy housekeeper.
There is nothing more fatal to comfort as well
as to decorum of behavior than Fuss.
The excessive flexibility of limb which dis-
tinguishes the American shows itself in the free
use of his hands and arms, as well as legs and
feet. He no sooner finds himself in the presence
of a stranger than he coils his arms about his
body and squeezes him into an appreciation of
the warmth of his friendship, or awakens him
by a sharp slap upon the back into a sudden
consciousness of its strength. "Hands off*!" may
be seen by a discerning person, as clearly as if
the words were printed, to be posted all over
well-bred people. There is nothing a fastidious
person dislikes so much as the careless or inten-
tional touch of the stranger. It behooves every
one, therefore, to keep his eyes open, that he may
read this warning, and recollect that he has no
right of common in the shoulders of every fel-
low-mortal he meets, however broad and easy
of approach they may be.
102 AMERICAN PEIIVINESS.
Of course it is not to be inferred that, though
the "free and easy" may be the characteris-
tic defect of the manners of most Americans,
there are not some to be found whose prevailing
fault is the reverse of an unconstrained ease.
There are occasional persons to be seen, especial-
ly in the eastern parts of our broad territory,
whose practice, at any rate, if not theory, is by
no means in the direction of Hogarth's wavy
line of beauty. These good people of genuine
Puritan descent have somehow or other con-
founded morals with physics, and seemingly re-
gard it as wicked to diverge from the line of the
perpendicular as from religious rectitude. Prim-
ness of manners is by no means graceful, and we
would remind our young folks that their bodies
are so constructed anatomically as to be capable
of bending without breaking. In bowing or
courtesying they will find it by no means fatal to
their own gravitation and resistance to yield to
the natural elasticity of their frames, though, if
they refuse to do so, it may be try^ing to other
people's gravity and self-command.
Many dames, by not bending the knees, render
their walk very ungraceful. The posture, more-
over, if too rigid, particularly in sitting, has an
exceedingly ugly look. Some folks are unable
to sit on a chair, though they have so many op-
now TO SIT IN A CHAIR. 103
portunities of learning how to do it. While
some never fairly get on a seat but to their
own manifest discomfort and that of all who
look upon their misery poise and balance them-
selves on the sharp edge, there are others who
roll their bodies up into heaps, as it were, and
throw them with an audible bounce deep into
the receptacle, whatever it may be. ^^ Every one
seating himself should take his place deliberate-
ly, and so completely that he may feel the full
repose of the chair, which it is designed to give.
The limbs, once at rest, should be moved, if
moved at all, as noiselessly as possible ; and all
extraordinary actions, such as lifting, for exam-
ple, one leg high npon the other, and holding it
there manacled by a grasp of the hand, should
be avoided. A person striding a chair, and grind-
ing his teeth, and thrumming his hands on the
back, has by no means an elegant look to the ob-
server before or behind. This practice, which is
never becoming in any company, is simply inde-
cent in that of women.
104 CONTROL OF EXPEESSION.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Expression. — How far Involuntary. — Laughter. — Its
Propriety. — Its Advantages. — Blushing. — Shamefaced-
ness. — Hawthorne in Company. — Great Men, Men of So-
ciety. — The Disguises of Age. — Too much Hair. — Hair-
dressing. — Misuse of the Nose. — Artificial Odors,
The face may manifest, more or less indejDend-
ently of the will, the character of the person, yet
it can be made, by set purpose, to assume an ex-
pression by no means indicative of the predomi-
nating moral or intellectual quality. Thus there
are some countenances, as those of the hypocrit-
ical, which, by studied care and long practice,
are made to give signs directly the reverse of the
true character. There are others, again, in Avhich
the expression is so designedly obscured that it
may be totally unreadable. These are the in-
scrutable faces which are not seldom found among
consummate thieves and their- skillful catchers
and detectives.
The expression is undoubtedly greatly under
the control which every polite person is con-
stantly exercising. It often occurs that we are
provoked to a manifestation of emotion the re-
verse of what is proper to the occasion. The
COMPOSUKE OF FACE. 105
provocative is of course resisted, and generally
with success, by the decorous. No decent per-
son laughs at a funeral or weeps at a wedding,
although the disposition is not seldom strongly
felt to reverse the conventional order of the tear
and the smile.
It would seem that polite persons are expect-
ed to cultivate a uniform composure of face.
Lord Chesterfield says, " I am sure that, since I
have had the full use of my reason, nobody has
ever heard me laugh," and denounces " frequent
and loud laughter as the characteristic of folly
and of ill manners." So far his lordship may be
right, and we agree with him when he adds that
people of sense and breeding should be above
laughing at bufibonery or silly accidents; but
we protest against his broad assertion that
"there is nothing so illiberal and so ill bred as
audible laughter," and that. " true wit or sense
never yet made any body laugh ; they are ^bove
it ; they please the mind, and give a cheerfulness
to the countenance."
Laughing inappropriately and on all occasions
is certainly an ofiensive habit. This is partly
attributed by Chesterfield to awkwardness and
mauvaisG honte^ and he gives as an example the
case of a famous poet. "I know a man," says
he, " of very good parts, Mr. Waller, who can
106 ADVANTAGE OF LAUGHTER.
not say the commonest thing without laughing,
which makes those who do not know him take
him at first sight for a natural fool."
Much can be said in favor of laughter. So-
cially it has the inspiriting influence of Cham-
pagne, promoting general gayety. Of course, op-
portunity and a decorous moderation should reg-
ulate the indulgence in this, as in all other pleas-
ures; but we protest against the total banish-
ment of hearty laughter from polite society.
Its good efiects upon the individual, as well as
upon mankind in the aggregate, can not be
spared. Without it, the national character
would wither to a dryness in which there would
be no succulence of humor, physical or moral,
left.
Laughter, w^hich is the ordinary physical man-
ifestation of the sentiment of mirth, is peculiarly
favorable to health. Its action, starting with
the lungs, diaphragm, and contiguous muscles,
is conveyed to the whole body, " shaking the
sides," and producing that general jelly-like vi-
bration of which we are so agreeably conscious
when under its influence. This wholesome ex-
ercise is, moreover, preceded and accompanied
by a gently exciting emotion of the mind, than
which nothing can be more favorable to the
health. The human being thus receives, mental-
BENEFITS OF CHEERFULNESS. 107
ly and bodily, an impulse which gives renewed
force to every vital organ. The heart beats
more briskly, and sends its life-giving fluid to
the smallest and most distant vessel. The face
glows with warmth and color, the eye brightens,
and the whole temperature of the body is height-
ened. When laughter and the emotions which
provoke it become habitual, the eflbct is to in-
crease the insensible perspiration of the skin, to
quicken breathing, and expand the lungs and
chest, to strengthen the power of digestion, and
favor nutrition. The proverb " Laugh and grow
fat" states a scientific truth. Shakspeare recog-
nizes the influence of mirth upon the human
body in his description of the " spare Cassius :"
*' Seldom he smiles."
It is a well-known fact that joy and its mani-
festations are the best sharpeners of the appe-
tite. Dyspepsia has been truly said to com-
mence oftener in the brain than in the stomach,
being so generally produced by anxiety of mind
and want of cheerfulness. A social feast, with
its accompaniments of jollity and good-fellow-
ship, is less apt to disorder a delicate digestion
than the solitary anchorite's crust and cress.
The agreeable emotions are the most eflective
preventives of disease. During the prevalence
of epidemics the courageous and cheerful are
108 A MERRY HEART.
seldom attacked. The plague, it has been said,
is a magnanimous enemy, and sj)ares the brave.
Those who give way to the depressing emotions,
such as fear and anxiety, are, on the contrary,
the first victims. There is an Eastern apologue
which describes a stranger on the road meeting
the Plague coming out of Bagdad. " You have
been committing great havoc there," said the
traveler, pointing to the city. " Not so great !"
replied the Plague. " I only killed one third of
those who died ; the other two thirds killed
themselves with fright." The doctors tell us
that a man may be daily exposed for weeks or
months, perhaps for years, to marsh miasms or
malaria, to the contagion of the most malignant
diseases — typhus fever, scarlatina, or cholera —
with impunity, provided he keeps up a merry
heart. The Walcheren pestilence, which proved
finally so destructive to the British troops, nev-
er tainted a soldier with its fatal touch until the
expedition became manifestly a failure. While
cheered by the hope of victory, each bid defiance
to disease; when depressed with certainty of
defeat, every one became a ready victim.
Cheerfulness is not only an effective prevent-
ive of disease, but an excellent remedy. Noth-
ing is observed to be so unfavorable to the re-
turn to health of a sick man as despair of him-
BLUSHING. 109
self, while hopefulness of his own case acts as
the most potent restorative.
Lord Bacon says: "To be free-minded and
cheerfully-disposed at hours of meat, and slee]),
and of exercise, is one of the best precepts of
long lasting." It may be doubted whether a
lugubrious man ever fulfilled the allotted period
of threescore years and ten, while it is notorious
that all those who have greatly surpassed it have
been mirthful persons.
The celebrated Sydenham was so persuaded
of the efficacy of cheerful emotions in the treat-
ment of disease, that he was accustomed to rec-
ommend to his patients the perusal of " Don
Quixote," saying, " If you want to get well, read
that and laugh."
Blushing, which, as a sign of modesty, may be
commendable in the young, especially of the fe-
male sex, is by no means always pleasing and
worthy of encouragement. When immoderate
and inopportune, it becomes a social nuisance.
There is a false shame, or 'inauvaise honte^ as the
French call it, which is the very reverse of true
modesty. The usual signs of the fictitious qual-
ity are shyness, with the common accomj)ani-
ments of frequent and ill-timed blushing, hesi-
tancy of speech, hanging of the head, downcast
eyes, sidelong glances, shambling and stumbling
110 FALSE MODESTY.
gait, restlessness of posture, and a general air of
voluntary shrinkage, if Ave may be allowed the
term. This false modesty is the result of a
genuine vanity, which, overestimating self, fan-
cies it the object of universal attention. This
naturally begets a sensitiveness and an anxiety
about personal appearance so great that they
embarrass the whole behavior ; for these excess-
ively vain persons, fancying all eyes constantly
upon them, would desire to make a figure in so-
ciety of which they are manifestly incapable.
Of this they are the first to become conscious,
and their hopelessness of success is j)ainted in
strong colors upon the face, and visibly imjoress-
ed upon every limb and feature. There are per-
sons who live to an advanced life, and yet retain
this mauvaise honte. It has often proved fatal
to the social qualities of some who have been
otherwise singularly well adapted not only to
receive from society, but to bestow upon it,
both distinction and happiness. Hawthorne, our
American genius, of whom we are justly proud,
was so afHicted with this mauvaise honte that,
with a head like that of Jove, and a natural maj-
esty that might have become the throne of
Olympus, w^ould shrink, blush, hang his head, and
hesitate in speech before a stranger, like an awk-
w^ard school-boy. In his case, it is true, if there
GKOWING OLD GEACEFULLY. Ill
was self-consciousness of importance, it was great-
ly justified, but it is no less true that its excessive
manifestation made him entirely impracticable as
a member of general society, which was undoubt-
edly the chief loser in this instance, though ordi-
narily it is not. If men of genius, like Lafon-
taine, Cowper, and Hawthorne, may be allowed to
turn their heads and fly from the ordinary world,
it is not permissible for the every-day people of
whom society is generally composed to shirk
the duties such a brotherhood imposes. All
young men and women should be held amenable
to the obligations of social decorum ; and, in
case of neglect or disobedience, nothing less than
genius, and that not without a thorough sifting
of the claim, should be received in extenuation.
It is not to be inferred that great endowments
of intellect are necessarily or even commonly
associated with a deficiency of social qualities.
Shakspeare, Bacon, Newton, Franklin, and Scott
were men of society. All, indeed, were public
personages, and called upon to fulfill duties which
any false modesty would have rendered imprac-
ticable.
The art of " growing old gracefully" is shown
in no respect more evidently than by the dis-
cretion with which the marks of age are treated.
No devices to give a deceitful apj)earance of
112 TOO MUCH OF THE BAKBEK.
youth can be justified by the sense of fitness and
good taste. False hair, more particularly, is
among the ugliest of shams, and, though made*
temporarily current by the sanction of fashion,
can not withstand the test of a severe decorum.
Old people of the best breeding now seldom re-
sort to the hair-dresser to refurbish their shat-
tered and decaying frames. The wig and dye-
pot are, we are pleased to announce, going out
of fashion.
The hair of the young, according to our taste,
should indicate as little as possible the artifi-
cial touch of the coiffeur. At any rate, any
marked evidence of his fanciful, oily, and odor-
ous fingers is always disgusting. When once
the head has been properly arranged, it is well
to avoid all farther interference with it. The
practice, so common with men, of passing the
hands through the locks, and of women of titi-
vating them with their gentle touches, is filthy,
and not becoming before company. The use of
a comb, or even its habitual carriage in the pock-
et, is irreconcilable with all mcety. of manners.
Some otherwise very decent peopje, however,
have this vile practice, and it is not uncommon
to find them deliberately combing themselves at
the table common to many guests.
The nose is the most prominent and noticeable
EFFECT OF TAKIMG SNUFF. 113
feature of the face, and, as its functions are not
all of the noblest kind, it especially behooves
people who desire to be nice to avoid drawing
attention to them. Consequently, all its require-
ments should be attended to in the quietest and
most private manner possible. It should never
be fondled before company, or, in fact, touched
at any time, unless absolutely necessary. The
nose, like all other organs, augments in size by
frequent handling, so we recommend every per-
son to keep his own fingers, as well as those of
his friends or enemies^ away from it.
We need hardly protest against the misuse of
the nose in turning it into a dust-hole or a soot-
bag, for the habit of snuff-taking has gone so out
of fashion that we can hardly find now even a
grandmother to venture upon a pinch. This hab-
it, apart from its filthiness, weakens the senses of
smell and hearing, and perverts the human voice
to a grunt by thickening the soft and sensi-
tive membrane which extends without a break
through the nose, ear, and throat, every part of
which is reached by the irritating particles of
the tobacco inhaled.
Most nations, not content with the sweet
odors* that ISTature so bountifully supplies, re-
* The labor and cost which man will endure for the small
luxury of a smell are exemplified by the difficulty and ex-
H
114 ODOKS.
sort to artificial sources. The most refined peo-
ple, however, avoid as much as possible personal
perfumes, and hold that the absence of all odor
is the best savor of human communion. They
agree with Lord Bacon that the " breath of flow-
ers is far sweeter in the air, where it comes and
goes, like the warbling of music, than in the
hand." Those of nice taste eschew all perfumes
but those which are evanescent, such as Cologne
and the like. It is a curious fact that the eau
de Cologne is a native of that worst smelling
of cities where Coleridge smelt we forget how
many stenches. This seems to confirm the sus-
picion that a perfume is but a mask for an ill
odor. The Cologne owes its well-deserved repu-
tation to the harmonious mixture of a variety
of essences, chiefly those of lemon, juniper, and
rosemary, so well combined that there is no pre-
dominating smell. It is, moreover, very evanes-
cent, and has a spirituous and enlivening scent,
which causes it to be used rather for one's own
refreshment than for the delectation of others.
This should be the rule in regard to all perfumes.
pense of manufacturing the attar or otto of roses. Two grains
only, it is said, of oil can be squeezed with the utmost care
from a thousand roses, and this is sold in India, on the spot
where it is made, for fifty dollars in gold a rupee in weight,
which is about 176 grains. At two grains a thousand, a ru-
pee of oil would require nearly ninety thousand roses !
ADHERENT SMELLS. 115
They should be kept as far as possible for the
individual, and never employed so strong as to
penetrate the surrounding atmosj)here. All in-
tensely adherent smells, such as musk, should be
carefully eschewed.
116 PEOPEE USE OF THE EYE.
CHAPTER IX,
Discreet Use of the Eye. — Familiar Glances. — The Fashion
of Eye-glasses. — Fast Girls. — Winking. — Sleeping in
Company. — The Somnolence of Washington Ining. —
Ear-boring. — Its Cruelty and Barbarism.
As the eye is the most expressive feature of
the face, so is it the one above all which should
be used with particular discretion. The two ex-
tremes of shyness and boldness, as indicated by
the downcast look and the staring, are equally
unbecoming. During ordinary social intercourse
with an equal, the eyes should be raised to his
or hers with a regard neither very unsteady nor
fixed. The look must not be staring or scrutin-
izing, but mildly inquiring and sympathetic.
We doubt whether the free interchange of
glance between those of opposite sex, so com-
mon even among the pretenders to good breed-
ing, can be justified by the principles of true de-
corum. There is to be noticed in the public
promenades, the ballrooms, the operas, the thea-
tres, and even in the churches, a wondrous famil-
iarity of look between our beaux and belles, who,
though strangers to each other, thus seem to have
THE FEEE EYE. 117
established, in the twinkle of an eye, an intimacy
of intercourse they would never acknowledge.
The free eye is a marked characteristic of the
libertine, and all modest women should turn per-
sistently from its roving and unlicensed glances.
Some young girls of the fast kind, with an auda-
cious defiance of conventional propriety, and yet ■
often with no thought of ofiense against real mod-
esty, will not only recklessly dally with these in-
trusive looks, but not seldom venture a cast of
them on their own account.
There are fast women every where, but the
fast girl seems to be more particularly an Amer-
ican product. A tendency on the part of the
young, unmarried female to eccentric flights of
any kind is effectually checked in most countries
by parental control. This continues to assert it-
self vigorously until marriage. A young girl in
Europe, except in England, where the social cus-
toms are more like our own, has thus little op-
portunity of indulging in festness or any other
maiden vagary.
The unmarried American woman is discerned
at once by the freedom of her manners. Her
bearing, of course, is modified more or less by
the natural disposition, education, and surround-
ing influences; but there is always apparent,
even in the most reserved, that sense of inde-
118 FAST AMEEICAN GIRL.
pendence characteristic of the republican maid.
You see at once, in the face of the most modest,
the well-assured look of the conscious will.
Without the least disposition to fasten Euro-
pean social fetters upon our daughters of Free-
dom, we would remind them that there are cer-
tain laws of taste and propriety as obligatory on
their obedience as upon that of their sisters of
monarchical England or imperial France. Lib-
erty is not necessarily license, and the claim to
the one is not to be vindicated by the lawless-
ness of the other. The American girl is no more
free by right than any other to indulge in those
bold coquetries with indecorum, whether of
dress, conversation, or manners, comprehended
within the slang term of fastness. It is, more-
over, a paltry ambition, and not w^ithout risk to
virtue, to aspire to the distinction of being point-
ed out as " the low-necked" Bel Smith, or the
"high-stepping'' Fanny Jones, or the girl who
drank a whole bottle of Champagne, or she who
smoked one of Frank Tripup's fifty-cent regalias.
These, or the improprieties they may symbolize,
are too common to be considered any longer ec-
centricities. They are indeed fast becoming sucli
prevalent characteristics as to mark the type of
the young girl of fashion. Her essential defect
is a vulgar ambition for notoriety. She will en-
FASTNESS ON CHAEACTEK. 119
dure any thing but obscurity, and therefore takes
care that she is seen, heard, and talked of by all
the world. Her dress is accordingly flaunting,
her voice loud, her words slangy, her eye staring,
her manners obtrusive, and conduct audaciously
irregular. All this may be, and is, doubtless,
done without any overt act of vice, but it looks
so much like it that the difference is hardly per-
ceptible to the external observer. In fact, it
seems to be the purpose of the fast damsel to as-
sume the semblance of wickedness, for in this ex-
hausted age the piquancy of sin is essential to
awaken admiration; and hypocrisy, ceasing to
pay its tribute to virtue, pays it to vice. The
danger of this is obvious, for familiarity with the
forms is apt to endanger indifference to the sub-
stance. The effect upon manners and character,
even when the last and fatal step is not taken,
is exceedingly hurtful. The young maid, in drop-
ing her reserve, loses her distinctive charm, and
the steady eye and defiant forehead alarm those
to whom the look of modesty is so alluring. The
bold and flaunting girl can never become the or-
derly housewife and patient mother, for will she
be contented to perform the quiet duties of home,
and accept the secret approval of her own con-
science, after having been accustomed to public
display and notoriety ?
120 EYE-GLASSES.
It would seem that American parents might
curtail somewhat the liberty of their children,
without interfering too much with that inde-
pendence of action so essential to the strength
of character;. Girls are allowed to consider them-
selves women too soon, and are thus premature-
ly emancipated from parental control. They are,
moreover, after leaving school, permitted to re-
main mistresses of their own time, when they
should be held in subjection to a systematic dis-
cipline of study and conduct. With less idle
time and a more watchful parental care, there
would be fewer of those fast girls, whose eccen-
tricities are becoming daily more remarkable and
alarming, and who are destined, if not checked
in their growth, to have a disastrous effect upon
social manners and morals.
After this long digression, into which we have
been led by the convenience of the occasion and
the importance of what we had to say, we return
to our subject. The functions of the natural eye
and eye-glasses are much abused. It is quite clear
that the whole world of fashion has not all of a
sudden become so afflicted with shortsighted-
ness as to render the use of artificial means for
its relief universally necessary. Nine tenths of
the people, male and female, who are constantly
eying the universe and each other through glass.
WINKING AND OGLING. 121
require no other medium than the one provided
by Nature. Nothing can be more ill bred, and
we assert it in the face of assenting Fashion, than
ogling a stranger in the streets through an eye-
glass —
" Gorgonizing him all over with a stony British stare,"
or surveying an opposite neighbor at the theatre
with a lorgnette.
We were witnesses of a deserved rebuke gen-
tly given by a priest at Notre Dame^ in Paris,
to a young American girl who, during matins,
was freely using her eye-glass. He touched her
arm, and indicated her wrong -doing with a
frown so polite that it might almost be taken
for a smile. She received the chiding with a
graciousness which nearly atoned for her sacri-
legious offense, and the fair penitent will, we are
sure, sin no more in this respect, wherever she
may go.
Winking and all knowing glances had better
be left to the horse-jockeys and the frequenters
of the bar-rooms, billiard saloon, and gambling-
tables. It would seem hardly necessary to re-
mind any one of the indecorousness of sleeping
in company, but it must be recollected that the
obligation is equally urgent upon all not to put
people to sleep. It is the duty of every one to
be wakeful ; it' is equally so to be as little som-
122 TOILETTE OF THE EAR.
niferous in matter and manner as possible. An
illustration is given in Vivian Gray of the som-
nolency of Washington Irving, who, according
to the author, D'Israeli, was taken up bodily from
a dinner-table where he had fallen asleep, and
did not awake until set down in the midst of
an evening party. This, if true, should be put
down rather to the account of the stupidity of "
London dinners than the impoliteness of Irving,
who, of all men, was the most courteous.
The ear is naturally one of the most retiring •
features of the face, and therefore less often of-
fends than is offended against. We may sug-
gest, however, the propriety of restricting to
the private dressing-room all that is necessary
for its toilette, as well as that of the rest of the
person. The insertion of the finger or any in-
strument into the passages of the ear, however
necessary for keeping that important organ in
proper order, is entirely an operation of private,
and not public interest.
We must here, even at the risk of a universal
oh ! from all womankind, protest against the
barbaric practice of ear-boring, to which they
cling with a singular persistence. It would be
as difficult, probably, to dissuade our dames
from making holes in their ears and hanging
trinkets to them as it would be to induce a fe-
BAEBAEITY OF EAR-BOEING. 123
male Hottentot to forego the national fashion
of piercing the cartilage of her flattened nose
and suspending from it a ring, large and heavy
as an iron cable-link, or prevent a Feejee Island-
er from tearing with a jagged fish-bone a rent
in the nether lip big and ugly as her voracious
mouth. The practice, however, of so-called civ-
ilized women is no less barbaric than that of
these savage females.
The woman of ancient Greece, true to the in-
stinctive sense of beauty and cultivated grace
of her race, trusted to the developments of her
natural charms for attractive force, and scorned
all adornments which were not inherent in her
own person. Fancy those beautiful ear-pulps
of the Venus of Milo, just peeping from below
her wavy garland of hair, bored through and
through, and dragged out from their cozy shel-
ter by heavy pendants of gold, silver, or what
not. Who would not be struck aghast at such
a sacrilege of art and nature ?
More modern art accepted these barbaric bau-
bles. Titian, for example, puts them in the ears
of his Venus, but in the voluptuousness of that
conception how great is the change, we might
say degradation, from the God-like chasteness
of the Greek ideals of beauty !
So fixed is the attachment of modern women
124 PEOCESS OF EAR-BOKING.
to this Ugly and barbaric practice, that they not
only persist themselves in wearing ear-rings, but
enjoin it almost as a duty upon their daughters
to do likewise. No sooner has the offspring of
fashion, Miss Arabella Augusta, or plain Maggie
of the common world — for the habit is universal
— completed her first decade, than she is taken to
some jeweler or surgeon (for there are even sur-
geons found thus to degrade their noble art) to
have her ears hored. The little ones seldom go
unwillingly, so early are they disposed to offer
themselves as sacrifices to that exacting deity.
Fashion. In fact, we know of one impatient lit-
tle hussy who, unwilling to bide her mother's
time, actually dropped the stocking she was
darning, and with the great needle deliberately
pierced holes in her ears, and left in each a
string of yarn to fester and complete the muti-
lation.
The ordinary process of ear-boring is simple,
and seldom either very painful or dangerous,
although there are cases recorded of erysipelas
and death having followed. The operator, be
he jeweler or surgeon, holds a cork firmly against
one side of the lobe of the ear, while from the
other side he transfixes it with a needle or an
awl, as a saddler punches a hole into a leather
strap. Then a thread is passed through and
A CRUEL OPERATION. 125
left to fester, so that the opening once made
may not close again. Familiar as you are with
the process, for it is being performed in each
day's light of this civilized land, gentle and
Christian dames, does not this description of it,
when deliberately read, sound like that of the
barbarous practice of savages in some far-off
country of heathenism ?
By hazard we once saw a young girl thus
mutilated. She came into a jeweler's shop
clinging to a great blowzy woman bejeweled all
over from the lobes of her ears to the tips of her
fingers, and her toes too, for what we know.
The child was pale, but was biting her lower lip
with a spasmodic fixedness of resolution. The
operator, a great whiskered fellow, after fum-
bling about for his tools, finally brought out his
awl and cork and began the operation. With
the mere touch of the cutting instrument the
poor child winced for the first time, and as the
man, who was somewhat of a bungler, forced his
way, boring through the tender flesh, a tear was
wrung from each little eye, and drop after drop
of blood fell and splashed, making great red
stains upon her linen collar. The child only bit
her lip more firmly, but evidently could hardly
restrain herself, and would have cried if her van-
ity had allowed. The operator coolly wiped his
126 EAR-TRINKETS.
bloody instrument, and the mother warmly-
scolded the child for letting the blood drop
upon her collar, and, paying the price of her
child's mutilation, walked away, still grumbling
at the stains.
Mothers will sometimes* when pressed hard
to answer for this barbarity, declare that boring
the ears is good for the eyes. This is a vulgar
error, and only worthy of a greasy ship's cook
or ignorant Maltese sailor, who wears ear-rings,
as he says, for the same reason.
N^either is there beauty or fitness in the prac-
tice of hanging the ears with trinkets. The ear
was intended to lie half concealed by the hair,
and any thing attached to it brings it into un-
due prominence. The ear-ring, however pre-
cious and pretty in itself, does not add beauty
to that rarest of possessions, a small and well-
formed ear, while it draws attention to a big
oyster-like one, and intensifies its ugliness.
PUEITY OF SPEECH. 127
CHAPTER X.
Purity of Speech. — Effect of refined Association. — Exagger-
ation of American Talk. — Fashionable Falsehood. — Plain
Speaking. — Prudishness of Speech.
Good early culture and habitual association
with refined persons are undoubtedly essential
to give purity to speech and the highest tone
of refinement to conversation. There are many
persons who have diligently perfected themselves
in a knowledge of the laws of grammar, and be-
come familiar with the style of the chastest writ-
ers, and yet can not utter a phrase without be-
traying the barbarism of a rude origin. It is
not uncommon to find people learned in- all the
rules of syntax, and capable of applying them to
the art of writing, who habitually speak incor-
rectly. Those, too, who are precisians in speech
are often ignorant of, and unrestrained by, the
laws of grammar in writing. A correct and re-
fined pronunciation, especially, is only to be ac-
quired by hearing it constantly, and from the
earliest age, from the lips of those who habitu-
ally use it. It is said that Sir Kobert Peel, the
great English statesman, with all the refinements
128 HOW TO SPEAK PURELY.
of his school, collegiate, and social relations, was
never thoroughly able to overcome the early in-,
fluence of his humble Lancashire origin, and that,
during all his life, the h was to him, as to most
of his countrymen, a constant stumbling-block.
It would be presumptuous to pretend to give
precepts for the acquisition of a refined speech,
which is only to be obtained by personal com-
munion with the expert. It is well, however, to
suggest the importance of keeping the young, as
far as possible, within the sound of pure speak-
ing, and not trust to the schoolmaster and the
rules of grammar for perfecting them in the re-
finements of speech. The choice of servants be-
comes important in this regard, and we doubt
whether the rude peasants of the Black Forest
and bogs of Connemara, to whom we commonly
intrust our little ones, are better suited to give
sweetness of voice, justness of emphasis, and cor-
rectness of expression than refinement of man-
ners to the future cavaliers and dames of Amer-
ica.
Although we can not pretend to give perfec-
tion to the use of mouth and tongue by any thing
we may say, we shall venture to utter a few warn-
ings, with the hope of preventing the abuse of
those flexible and easily perverted organs.
Loudness, or what the French call the criard^
SLANG. 129
is peculiarly an attribute of American talk, and
is not favorable to purity of diction or clearness
of thought. This style of conversation is marked
by the free use of intense and high-sounding ad-
jectives, generally employed in their superlative
degrees. These, moreover, are often most ludi-
crously misapplied. For example, we hear the
'.' splendidest" vreather,the "most beautiful" ice-
cream, the "sweetest" clergyman, the "most ele-
gant" sermon, the " awfulest" fine w^hiskers, the
"terrible dress that horrid Miss A wore,"
the " dreadfully shocking" hat of Miss B — — ,
and those " magnificent" trowsers of Harry, and
" delicious" boots of Tom, gushing from the lips
of our young damsels in a torrent of such con-
fused speech that its parts are hardly distin-
guishable from each other, and form but a tur-
bid mixture of nonsense.
Every few years or so a slang phrase gets
somehow or other into vogue. That this should
consist merely of the misuse of some familiar
J:erm, and not the invention of a new one, like
"quiz," for example, shows the comparative pov-
erty of device of us moderns. "Awful" is, for
the moment, the abused word, and it is bandied
about throughout all the length and breadth of
the English language, and consequently all over
the globe. For no reason in the world, it has
I
130 FASHIONABLE FALSEHOOD.
thrown out of usage an appropriate and service-
able adverb, and suddenly taken its place, for
which, being an adjective, it is by nature unfit.
Wherever the old " very" once becomingly held
its own, the impudent interloper "awful" has
thrust itself, contrary to all grammatical deco-
rum. Slang of every variety, whether consist-
ing of this absurd abuse of a word, or whatever
else, is equally opposed to correctness of speech
and propriety of manners.
Profane swearing, or its relatives, the various
emphatic expletives, are now never heard in de-
cent society, and people of good breeding are not
expected to give pledges of " word" or " honor"
as guarantees of their truth and honesty.
There is a kind of deceit which fashion seems
to sanction, but the necessity or convenience of
which may not be so great as is supposed. It is
astonishing the number of falsehoods one has
to utter to make a respectable figure in what is
technically called society. A truthful person,
incapable of practicing a deceit or asserting a
lie, would not be able to hold up her head for a
moment in what the fashionable deem good com-
pany. Fancy a woman with a conscience above
decej)tion presenting herself in all her natural-
ness of person and character! Suppose her,
scorning crinoline, padding, false hair, and other
EXCUSES FOR FALSEHOOD. 131
artifices of the modern dame's mcike-up^ and
exhibiting herself in her original dimensions !
I^othing would so shock the sensibilities of the
fashionable world at least as such an honest dis-
closure of the truth — of nature.
The proprieties of society would be still fur-
ther startled at the sound of the spoken truth.
If any one should drop the lying words of love,
friendship, esteem, and admiration, and use only
those expression's which denote the actual rela-
tions of ordinary mortals, he or she would be
speedily thrust out.
We are told that these expressions of endear-
ment and of proffered service so universal are
merely conventional expressions ; that, for ex-
ample, when we say or write to persons the most
indifferent to us, as we all do, " My dear Sir," or
"Dear Madam," "Your humble servant," or
" Yours faithfully," we do not mean what is said
or written. We are quite aware of it, and this
only confirms our statement of the social neces-
sity of the lie ; for in the most ordinary relations
of life we are compelled to make use of it, or lose
our claim to a place in polite society. Some in-
genious moralists have found excuses for the
conventional falsehood. We are rejoiced that
they have, for it seems impossible to avoid tell-
ing it ; and many a sore conscience wants salv-
132 A FASHIONABLE LIAK.
iiig. Paley justifies a dame, who is at home,
sayhig that she is not, by the gloss that she
means that " she is not at home to see company."
This is no justification at all ; for if she does not
desire to deceive, why should she not state the
plain truth.
While allowing largely for the quantity of
falsehood necessary to make a respectable ap-
pearance in society, we still think that there is
an exorbitant use of that tempting but fatal
vice. The great danger of conceding the least
privilege to a lie is that it may assert its right
of way every where ; and it is a fact that where
the conventional falsehood is most in vogue,
there genuine truth is least common. It is as-
tonishing with what effrontery a fashionable
woman will tell a barefaced lie ! Mark with
what rapidity she will pass from a compliment
to abuse of the same person ! She is " charmed"
and " disgusted" in the turn of a heel ; praises
before and vituperates behind ; welcomes loudly
in a voice which ends in a whisper of discontent ;
and one half of her time is spent in unsaying
what she says during the other. A dame of '' the
best society" urged, in our hearing, with appa-
rent candor and earnestness, a gentle guest to
favor the company with the pleasure of hearing
her " sweet voice." The young girl no sooner
PLAIN SPEAKING. 133
turned with a polite compliance to the piano
than our hostess whisj)ered to another guest at
her side, "Now you'll hear a screech." The
compliment and denunciation were uttered al-
most in the same breath, and without a change
in the uniform rij)ple of her face.
How many urgent solicitations are made to
which the " favorable" answer desired is a nega-
tive, though the contrary is pretended with so
much apparent earnestness. When people are
asked to " stay," to " call again," to " come oft-
en," to " drop in to dinner," " to be sure to be in
time for tea," it is seldom wished they should do
either. These are the polite lies and frauds of
society which can not be justified by any ab-
stract principle of morals.
There is a habit the directly opposite of fash-
ionable falsehood ; we mean plain speaking, of
which we shaU find no traces in polite. society.
This, though undoubtedly a virtue, may be car-
ried to an uncomfortable and inconvenient ex-
cess.
There are certain people who take credit to
themselves for seeing through all the illusions
of life, and tearing away every veil of gauze
which individual fondness or social propriety
may throw over the ugly and painful. These
run a muck through society, attacking all its
134 IMPERTINENT REALISTS.
cherished deceits, however innocent and harm-
less. They would make a clean sweep of all the
phantasms of the imagination, put to flight the
airy creations of the fancy, and dispel the cloud-
less visions of dreamland. They would not that
man should ever forget his primitive constitu-
tion of dust and ashes. With the least tendency
heavenward before his time, they tug him to
earth at once.
These impertinent realists are the great de-
stroyers of human happiness. They begin ear-
ly, continue Long, and never cease until the end
of life. A mother's tenderness even can not
soften their hard-hearted positivism. They will
rudely blur the maternal vision of her child's
beauty with the unwelcome assertion that it is
ugly. " All babies are ugly," is a favorite prop-
osition of these plain-spoken people. This may
be a fact in natural history, but it is something
that was never dreamt of in the philosophy of
the mother to whom the ugliest child is most
beautiful. In fact, as there are no absolute laws
of beauty, there is no reason why the maternal
fondness should not be accepted as the test in
regard to the looks of her own infant. No in-
diflerent person has the right to an opinion con-
trary to that of her who is so deeply concerned.
A polite concurrence is the duty of every civil-
ATTACK ON YOUNG IMAGINATION. 135
izecl being. Politeness, however, is never recog-
nized as an obligation by the plain-spoken peo-
ple, of one of whom we recollect an incident
strikingly illustrative of this statement. A fond
mother was displaying her first-born to a circle
of her husband's friends. Among these there
chanced to be a plain-spoken person of the plain-
est kind. Every one but him hastened to utter
the compliment appropriate to the occasion. He
kept what he had to say until the mother had
been warmed to the highest point of maternal
vanity by the intense expressions of admiration
of all but him, when he deliberately dashed upon
her this bucketful of cold water. " Your baby,
madam," said he, " reminds me of a Flat-headed
Indian." The comparison, it is true, was not in-
appropriate. As for the suitableness of the re-
mark to the occasion, we leave it to all tender
mothers to decide.
These plain-spoken people have the audacity
to declare in the face of every boy that there
never was such a person as Robinson Crusoe or
his man Friday, and that Jack the Giant-Killer
is a myth. Boys fortunately have a sturdy faith,
sustained by a young and vigorous imagination,
and they are generally proof to the unwelcome
and improbable verities of plain-spoken people.
It is, however, none the less cruel to torment
136 GOOD sirs OF plain speaking.
the youthful credulity with the uncertainties of
doubt.
Never invite a plain-spoken person to dinner,
for he will be sure to detect the Newark cider
in your Champagne bottle, and announce the
fact before the whole company. Don't trust in
his presence to the delusion of a wig, or confide
in the artifice of a hair-dye, for he will penetrate
the deceit, and expose you in all the baldness
and grayness of age. After death, let not your
family invite him to your funeral, for he will tell
all your failings to his companion as he walks to
your grave.
Plain-sj)oken people perhaps have their good
side also. They are quick to detect every sham,
and may serve as correctors of false pretension.
If they would confine their detective propensi-
ties and their public denunciations to all the
false shows of wealth, gentility, benevolence, and
religion, Ave might wish them God-speed. While,
however, they continue to run a muck at all the
innocent illusions of the imagination and the
heart, we shall keep our doors closed, and our-
selves, if possible, secure from the shock of all
plain-spoken people.
The prudishness which avoids calling things
by their real names, " a spade a spade^"^ etc., and
resorts to all sorts of verbal device to escape
PRUDTSHNESS OF SPEECH. 137
the employment of some peculiar term become
inexplicably offensive, is the worst form of im-
modesty, for it gives proof of impure thought,
while it hypocritically strives to disguise it. We
join with Sterne in his warning against the dan-
gers of " accessory ideas." There are certain
words peculiar to American usage which, so far
from being recognized by the English, are unin-
telligible to them. There is not one man or
woman in ten thousand of those who speak our
language, except ourselves, who would under-
stand what we mean by "rooster." We are
gradually getting over, in this country, this false
modesty of speech, and it is now perhaps possi-
ble to discover within a hundred miles of a me-
tropolis an occasional pair of female lips capable
of pronouncing " leg," " shirt," " body," or even
" trowsers," and a face that will not redden at
the remotest allusion to a subject more or less
suggested by the presence of every reputable
matron.
138 .THE AMERICAN VOICE.
CHAPTER XI.
The Defects of the American Voice. — Their Cause. — Ugly
Noises with the Mouth. — Decency of Motion. — Attitudin-
izing. — Affected Women. — Ugly Tricks. — Hand-shaking.
— Democratic Intrusiveness. — American Publicity. — The
Impertinence of British Loyalty. — Salutations. — Care of
the Hands and Nails.
The American voice is generally more nasal
and high-pitched than the English. Our women,
particularly, are far less gentle and sweet-toned
in speech than their British cousins. On hear-
ing some of our damsels speak, we are forcibly
reminded of the beautiful girl in the fairy-tale
who could never open her mouth without letting
out toads, vipers, and other ugly creatures. The
sharpness of the American voice may possibly
be somewhat due to the prevalent condition of
the atmosphere in this country. This idea seems
to be confirmed by the fact of a variation in tone
according to the degree of latitude and longi-
tude. The Northern and Eastern voices are cer-
tainly less soft than the Southern. Voice essen-
tially depends upon hearing, and the sounds ut-
tered will correspond pretty faithfully with the
FREEDOM OF YOUTHFUL SPEECH. 139
sounds heard. If these, in consequence of a clear,
dry atmosphere, strike the ear shrilly, the vocal
organs will naturally echo them in sharp, quick
tones. Granting that the peculiar American voice
may be greatly due to natural causes, we yet do
not doubt that much can be done by care to qual-
ify its monotonous harshness.
Our children, in accordance with their general
freedom from restraint, are allowed to exercise
their voices, as the rest of their franchises, with-
out check. These " chartered libertines" accord-
ingly use their tongues and lungs as those are
wont who can do as they will with their own.
They put them to the full stretch of their pow-
ers, and consequently shout when they should
talk. Thus their utterance becomes habitually
loud and impetuous, and necessarily shrill and
monotonous, for high are sharp, and hasty are un-
modulated tones. A little more rigidity of disci-
pline in childhood would do much, we think, to
correct not only the vocal, but some other de-
fects of our people we might enumerate. Let our
damsels bear always in mind that there is noth-
ing so charming in woman as a low, sweet voice',
and strive, accordingly, to evoke some variety
and softness of tone from their vocal organs,
Avhich are not necessarily loud-sounding instru-
ments of a single note, and that a sharp nasal
140 DECOROTJS SWALLOAVING.
one. The practice of reading aloud is a good
means of learning to modulate the voice ; and, in
pronouncing each word, the mouth should be fair-
ly opened, that the guttural sound may be heard,
and not lost in a predominating nasal twang.
The mouth may offend by its inarticulate as
well as articulate utterances. All unnecessary
noises with this and its fellow-organ, the tongue,
are fatal to decorum of manners. Humming,
whistling, hawJcing^ spitting, and sucking of the
teeth are so disgusting that the mere mention
of them seems almost an offense. Some folks,
otherwise of passable manners^ become insuffer-
able whenever they attempt to take into their
mouths fluids of any kind, which they never do
without a succession of audible flops. This is
generally a habit acquired in youth for want of
proper direction. It would seem as if nothing
were easier than to drink tea or eat soup without
making an ugly noise, and yet there are few who
seem capable of doing so. All that is necessary,
in order to swallow a liquid with the quietness
that decorum exacts, is to open the lips well, and
f o put the spoon fully into the mouth, should its
use be necessary. All smacking of the lips, even
over your host's finest Tokay, Consular Seal, or
Burgundy, is but a barbarous mode of express-
ing an appreciation of vinous excellence, and had
DECENCY OF MOTION. 141
better be left to the drinkers of lager beer and
" Bourbon" at the corner groggery.
The use of a toothpick of the proper kind is
essential to a due care of the teeth, but should
be no more exposed to public notice than any
other necessary but unpleasantly suggestive ar-
ticle of the toilette.
Unlike those of some races, as the Oriental
and the various Latin nations, the English and
North American people do not show, in ordi-
nary conversation, much flexibility of expres-
sion or movement. The best bred with us are
apt to be composed, even to stiffness. A certain
degree of action, provided it be always graceful,
is not only consistent with, but absolutely essen-
tial to a decorous bearing. The " principal part
of beauty," says Lord Bacon, " is in decency of
motion." The face certainly, and the hands and
arms, and even the whole body, more or less,
should move in harmony with the discourse and
sympathy with the general tone of conversation.
In the interest of narrative and warmth of argu«
ment, considerable energy and variety of gesture
are permissible, but the condition of grace must
be exacted. We knew an emphatic talker, who
was generally listened to with attention, and
justly so, for he had often much to say to the pur-
pose, and said it well, but whose action, though
142 ATTITUDINIZING.
ordinarily not without grace, occasionally took
a turn contrary to all the proprieties. In the
height of conversation he would suddenly jump
up, seize each tail of his faultless dress-coat, and,
turning round and round like a whirling dervish,
make such an unreserved revelation to all the
company of his proportions, that modesty was
shocked, and laughter could hardly hold its sides.
The action was, of course, fatal to the eloquence
it was intended to illustrate.
Ordinary people, who do not set up for bril-
liant talkers or powerful disputants, had better
cultivate a uniform composure of manner. Let
their bearing be easy and decorous, without lax-
ity or stiffness.
To attitudinize, or poser ^ as the French term
it, with the view of producing an impressive ef-
fect upon the beholder, seldom succeeds except
with the rawest members of society. When de-
tected, as it always is by accomplished people
of the world, it creates, at first sight, a feeling
of aversion which is not easy to eradicate.
This posing for effect is so old a trick, and so
easy of detection, that it is surprising any per-
son who has reached years of discretion should
attempt to play it. Yet how often do we see it,
in its various phases of the delicate young lady
with the languid air, the listless step, or die-away
AWKWARD USE OF HANDS. 143
posture ! — the literary young lady, with the stu-
diously neglected toilette, the carefully exposed
breadth of forehead, and the ever-present, but
seldom-read book ! — the abstemious young lady,
who surreptitiously feeds on chops at private
lunch, and starves on a pea at the public din-
ner ! — the humane young lady, who pulls Tom's
ears and otherwise tortures brother and sister in
the nursery, and does her utmost to fall into con-
vulsions before company at the sight of a dead
fly ! — and the fastidious young lady, who faints,
should there be an audience to behold the scene,
at the sight of roast goose, but whose robust ap-
petite vindicates itself by devouring all that is
left of the unclean animal when a private op-
portunity will allow. We assure our young
damsels that such affectations are not only ab-
surd, for they are perfectly transparent, but ill
bred, as shams of all kinds essentially are.
The management of the hands in company
seems to embarrass young people greatly. This
comes from the false modesty, or mauvaise honte^
which induces them to suppose they are the ob-
served of all observers. Let them think only of
themselves in due proportion of estimate with the
vast multitude of mankind, and frequent habitu-
ally the company of the refined, and they will
probably overcome much of their awkwardness,
if they do not acquire a large degree of grace.
144 ELOQUENCE MADE DUMB.
There is nothing more annoying to other peo-
ple who may be present than the noise which a
person will sometimes make by snapping a tooth-
pick, jingling a watch-chain, creaking a chair,
opening and shutting a pencil or knife, tapping
the boot with a cane, or making any kind of
noise or movement which irresistibly and dis-
agreeably attracts the general attention.
Every one should be particular to avoid ac-
quiring in youth the habit of fumbling with any
part of the person or thing appertaining to it.
It is astonishing how fixed this may become. So
completely are such habits, in cases of long prac-
tice, associated with the action of the person,
that they seem to be incorporated into his very
structure, as it were. There are people who, if
suddenly dej)rived of the means of practicing
some ugly and habitual trick, will be so para-
lyzed in brain and tongue as to be incapable of
continuing sl train of thought or current of
speech. We knew a lawyer, learned in Black-
stone, and an eloquent advocate, who had ac-
quired the habit of twisting a piece of paper and
twirling it between his fingers during his address-
es to Court and jury. Whenever some roguish
brother, as sometimes occurred, would take the
opportunity of the speaker dropping the paper
momentarily during a pause in his argument to
HAND-SHAKING. 145
remove it, his embarrassment became extreme.
He stared anxiously around, fumbled every where
with his fingers about the law books and briefs,
stammered out a few incoherent words, blushed
(for even he, lawyer as he was, would blush on
such an occasion), and was entirely unable to col-
lect his thoughts and renew his speech until
some merciful comrade (probably the guilty
brother) had restored to his hands its plaything,
and to his mind and tongue their cunning.
It is well when these ugly tricks do not take
the most oifensive form; but occasionally we find
persons, otherwise incapable of ill breeding, who
will pick their noses, clean their nails, and scratch
their heads before all kinds of company, and re-
main perfectly unconscious, from the insensibility
of habit, of their offensive acts.
Hand-shaking is a national custom w^hich w^e
have in common with our English relatives from
whom we derived it. In private intercourse
they probably carry it to a greater excess than
we, but on certain public occasions we practice
it far more than they. Our sovereign people in-
sist upon giving their Briarean hands to every
domestic notability and distinguished foreign
visitor. All the famous men from abroad who
have become our national guests, from the Mar-
quis de Lafayette to Kossuth, have been forced
K
146 DEMOCRATIC INTEUSIVENESS.
to submit to ,this manipulation by the universal
democracy. Lafayette, with true French polite-
ness, yielded gracefully to this demand for a
touch of his glove by twenty millions of people,
but he became very sparing of speech. He only
asked of each one who came up, as he shook
hands with him, " Are you a married man ?" If
the answer was "Yes," the marquis rejoined,
" Happy fellow !" If the answer was " No," he
exclaimed, " Lucky dog !" With this meagre
luggage of nine words the economical marquis
is said to have kept himself in ready English
speech, and made a creditable appearance during
his whole journey from Maine to Georgia. No
makeshift, however, would avail him as a sub-
stitute for the giving of his hand, which, at the
end of his triumphal march, was fairly shaken
into • a paralysis. This kind of hospitality to
public men is more honored in the breach than
the observance, for, expanding naturally with
the wonderful increase of our population, it has
finally become insupportably liberal. The in-
trusive curiosity to see and touch the great, to
their manifest discomfort, is as far removed from
decorum as reverence. Our public personages
will be forced, before long, in self-protection, to
resist this democratic intrusiveness. No popu-
lar favorite can physically endure to have his
LOYAL INTRUSIVENESS. 147
hand often sli^ken by forty million sturdy fellow-
citizens, or even to bear pecuniarily the expense
to which the thousands of gloves necessary to
guard it must amount.
A president held in such reverence that he can
safely resist the inordinate humors of the* de-
mocracy should venture to reform the official
manners of the nation. He could be surround-
ed without hedging himself, as doth a king, with
more ceremonial observances, to the manifest in-
crease of his own comfort and the improvement
of the manners of his fellow-citizens. With all
our informality, however, we have not yet reach-
edb that pertinacious intrusiveness of British loy-
alty which will follow the scent of queen, prince,
or princess not only from the palace door through
every street and over the whole country, but pur-
sue it across seas, and throughout the width of
the broadest continent."^
Personal reserve is far less easy of attainment
in the United States than in most countries. Our
* It lately transpired that* the Princess of Wales was about
resorting for her health to the baths of Wildbad, in Wiirtem-
berg. To avoid being hunted up by a throng of eager pur-
suers, she slipped away disguised by an incognito ; but, not-
withstanding, her scent was caught, taken quickly up, and
followed pertinaciously to her dinner-table in the little Ger-
man town, where, at the last accounts, her subjects were quar-
reling over the cherry-stones ejected from the princely mouth.
148 LOVE OF PUBLICITY.
political institutions, by their recognition of the
equal rights of all men, call upon each individual
to manifest himself Every American being thus
not only free to speak and act, but feeling it his
duty to do so, becomes, more or less, a public
man. The political influence extends to the so-
cial habits, and we have, in consequence, but lit-
tle privacy of life.
Our love of publicity is shown by the grega-
rious modes in which wc live and move. That
great caravansar}^, the American hotel, is a
characteristic exj)ression of the national protest
against individual separateness. It is construct-
ed on the principle that it is not good for a»y
human being to be alone except Avhen he is
asleep, and even then it is not seldom that he is
provided with one or more companions. The
bedrooms are made just large enough to lie
down in, and are evidently only designed for
that purpose. These, thrust far away under the
eaves, are ordinarily the only provision for the
individual. The rest, composing much the lar-
ger and most accessible part of the structure, is
appropriated to the public, for whom, moreover,
all the splendor and convenience are exclusively
furnished. So much is the American hotel con-
structed for the especial advantage of the aggre-
gate many, and so little are the requirements of
GREGARIOUSNESS. 149
the particular one considered, that, while thou-
sands are feasted there luxuriously at certain
hours every day, no single hungry man can, at
any other moment, get a chop or a potato to
save himself from starving.
In traveling the same gregarious practices ob-
tain, and no one, however tender of body and
fastidious in mind, can entirely escape the nudge
of the elbow or the shock from the words of a
rude neighbor.
This shaking together, so universal with us,
has not been without its marked effects upon the
character and manners of our people. The good
may be thought by some to transcend the bad.
It has led, undoubtedly, to a fuller recognition
of common interests and mutual obligation, and
thus humanized the multitude. Meeting togeth-
er as we all do on the road and the road-side, in
the enjoyment of the same cheaply - purchased
privileges, we are forced, temporarily at least,
to a social equality^ which can not fail to elevate
the spirit of the humble and check the aspira-
tions of the proud.
One of the worst effects of the gregarious sys-
tem is the perpetual intrusiveness of the many
upon the retirement which is at times necessary
and pleasing to each person. The uniformity of
sentiment, moreover, which is apt to result, and
150 CULTIVATION OF DOMESTIC PRIVACY.
overbear the private judgment and the individ-
ual conscience, may be also considered as one of
the most serious evils. There is a certain bold-
ness, too, of manners, which is more observable
and offensive in the young than in others, which
is traceable to the publicity of American life.
We should, particularly in this country, culti-
vate domestic privacy as the best check to the
excessive tendency to gregariousness. We, on
the contrary, are apt to cultivate the latter at
the expense of the former; thus the practice
common with us of living in hotels and board-
ing-houses, where that reserve so necessary to
the development of the individual character and
the acquisition of modest manners is impossible.
There will be always a publicity naturally re-
sulting from our political and social institutions
which can not be avoided. It behooves us, there-
fore, to augment its good and diminish its ill ef-
fects as far as it lies in our power. As we can
not get rid of each other, let us make ourselves
mutually usefiil and agreeable by the improve-
ment of our sentiments and manners. With the
greater publicity in America, public opinion is
necessarily more extensive in its influence, and
therefore it is especially important that it should
be exerted in favor of the good and beautiful.
In private life in this country the hand is not
BOWS AND NODS. 151
often given except to intimate friends and rela-
tives. In England it is nLore freely extended to
those met for the first time. Ordinarily it should
be left to the older or more distinguished to make
the proffer of the hand. Cavaliers and dames in
this country, as in France, seldom extend to each
other the hand unless there is a great difference
of age and position, or much intimacy of rela-
tion. Whenever the hand is given, it is not nec-
essary to draw off the glove, as some attempt to
do, with a great deal of fuss and consequent em-
barrassment.
There is a great deal of tact required in adapt-
ing the salutation to the occasion. The mere nod,
which is allowable, perhaps, between the com-
rades of a school and college, the " fellows" of an
office, a counting-house and shop, or the cronies
and "friends" of girlhood, should never be passed
between courteous people of full growth and age.
They should give an unequivocal bow or courte-
sy, which, however, women are not expected to
stop when under full headway, and make ac-
cording to the principles laid down by their last
dancing-master. A graceful bend of the head and
shoulders is all that is necessary. A gentleman
will raise his hat fairly from the head, and not
limit his salutation to a mere touch of the rim,
like a coachman or a waiter. The salutation is
152 liECOGNITION OF ACQUAINTANCES.
made to suit the various degrees of intimacy by
the accompanying expression of the face, which
can indicate familiarity by a smile or look of
conscious recognition, and reserve by a com-
posed aspect and an indifferent glance. The va-
riations are, however, not easily defined in words,
though discerned without difficulty in action,
and must therefore be left to the individual
tact.
On meeting a friend in company with a lady,
though a stranger, it is necessary to be very
particular in giving the bow all its fullness and
formality, that it may indicate respect for the
dame, as well as intimacy with the cavalier.
So, too, when two male friends walking together
meet the female acquaintance of one, it behooves
both to raise their hats.
It is common, in this country and in England,
to await the recognition of the lady before bow-
ing, though in France it is the reverse ; but in
the three countries, w^here the intimacy is great,
the mutual salutation is ordinarily simultaneous.
When, in the park or public promenade, there
is constant passing and repassing, it is found
convenient to limit the formal recognition of an
acquaintance to the salutation on first sight.
The chance meeting of a person at the house
of a common friend, when there has been no
MUTILATED COURTESY. 153
formal introduction, is not considered a neces-
sary reason for giving or expecting a salutation.
Where either, however, bestows it, it should be
courteously and fully returned. The French are
more liberal of their courtesies than we and our
reserved relatives in England. A Frenchman
will take off his hat to any person he may meet
on the outside steps of his own or a friend's
house, as he thinks that the mere fact of this
common relation to the same house, though it
be transitory, establishes a bond of communion,
however slight, demanding acknowledgment.
A lady seated in a room is not expected to
rise from her chair when saluted by a gentleman
or by one of her own sex unless the latter be a
person very much her superior in age.
A bow should always be acknowledged, by
whomsoever proffered, whether master or man,
maid or mistress, unless there is a good reason
and an intention to rebuke.
All salutations had better be omitted than
given in a way to indicate an unwilling polite-
ness. The clipped bow, the " mutilated courte-
sy," as Goldsmith calls it, and the incomplete
shake of the hand, in which the scornful touch
of two fingers is made to do service for a full
grasp with the five;, are odious mockeries of ci-
vility.
It would seem to imply a great distrust of the
154 LONG NAILS.
nicety of man and womankind to suggest to
them the . necessity of keeping the hands and
their appurtenances in good condition. These
noticeable parts of the body are, however, often
neglected or treated unbecomingly. The nails of
people who boast to be fastidious in the care of
their persons are not seldom far from being well
cared for. Dean Swift was so nice in this re-
spect that he used to cut his nails to the very
quick to secure their freedom from uncleanliness
of all kind. We do not advise this mode of i)re-
venting a very disgusting result, for a very short
nail is not seemly.* It is an ugly practice, too,
according to our notions, to let the nails grow
until they lengthen into claws. It was, howev-
er, a fashion in France during the reign of Louis
Xiy. to cultivate a great length of the nail of
the little finger, and this was for the purpose of
being able to scratch at a door, which every vis-
itor was expected to do, instead of knocking,
when wishing to gain admittance to a fashion-
able friend. Moliere speaks of " I'ongle long"
that the marquis of his day "i^orte au petit
doigt" — that is, of the long nail worn at the end
of the little finger.
* The inner part of the nail should never be scraped with
a file or cutting instrument, for this will produce a rough
surface, in the irregularities of which the dirt will lodge, and
be very difficult of removal.
CIVILIZED AND BAEBARIC DKESS. 155
CHAPTER XII.
Effect of Civilization on Dress.— The opposite Progress of
Man and Woman in the Art of Dressing. —The true Rule
of Dress. — Uniformity of Dress in America. — Inappropri-
ateness of Dress. — Sunday-best.
Civilization- has done little more for the hu-
man passion of personal adornment than extend,
by its progress in the arts, the means of gratify-
ing its barbaric caprices. The taste in dress of
the Parisian dame of fashion is not essentially
more refined than that of the Choctaw squaw.
All the manufacturing and commercial triumphs
of the nineteenth century are, it is true, more or
less manifest in the complicated drapery of the
one, while, in the scant covering of the other, ev-
ery thing indicates the rudeness and simplicity
of an artless nature. Hair cut from the head
of a Hottentot woman, brought from remote
Caffreland, purified by an elaborate chemical
process of its native foulness, and turned by in-
genious machinery into the fashionable head-
dress known as the chignon^ implies great com-
mercial enterprise, scientific skill, and mechan-
ical ingenuity. These are undoubtedly among
156 MAN AND WOIVIAn's DRESS.
the forces to which civilized people owe their
might and suiDcriority to barbarians. The chig-
non^ as a product, is unquestionably beyond the
undeveloped resources of the whole Choctaw na-
tion. Worn, however, as a head-dress, with its
tumor-like excrescence and morbid deformity of
proportion, it indicates in the woman of civiliza-
tion no progress in taste beyond her barbaric
sister of the American forest and prairie. The
wild flowers and eagle feathers of the savage
are, in fact, vastly more chaste and beautiful than
the elaborate monstrosities worn by the civilized
being.
There has been of late years a certain diverg-
ence between masculine and feminine taste in
dress. Woman has been rapidly becoming more
fanciful, artificial, elaborate, and expensive in cos-
tume, until she has finally reached such a fright-
ful complexity of capricious finery, involved form,
minute detail, various color, and accumulated
material, that she appears but a confused bale
of miscellaneous dry goods, upon which nothing
is clearly indicated but the mark of the high
price.
Man, on the contrary, has, in these latter days,
with a great tendency to simplification of cos-
tume, finally reached what Carlisle, we believe,
termed a series of pokes or sacks, loosely adapt-
A DEAR SUIT. 157
ed to successive parts of the frame — a sack for
the trunk, two sacks for the upper, and two for
the lower extremities, which form a complete
suit of masculine attire. There is, however, ap-
parently a disposition on the part of the young
beaux to fall back into the fantastic splendors of
past time, and there may now be occasionally
seen an increased elaborateness of make in the
coat and trowsers, and showiness of display in
the cravat, shirt bosom, and waistcoat. With
all this, however, there is generally a commend-
able simplicity in men's attire. The change is
immense from the laced ruffles, embroidered scar-
let coats, and breeches of brilliant satin, silk
stockings, and diamond buckles of our ancestors
of a hundred and fifty years ago. Think of poor
Goldsmith promising to pay — an obligation he
was much more ready to assume than perform —
£50, or two hundred and fifty dollars, a cen-
tury ago, when money was much more valuable
than at present, for his " suit of Tyrian bloom,"
in order to shine in the beloved eyes of the " Jes-
samy bride." Xot twenty years since, so elab-
orately fabricated w^as the collar of a coat, that
more labor and money were expended upon it
than are now required to make and pay for a
whole suit of clothes. Taste and convenience
have gained much by the increased simplicity
158 now TO DRESS WELL.
of man's costume, and it must be acknowledged
that his plain garments, if they do not express
so fully the progress of the arts as woman's rich
habiliments, indicate, by their fitness, more cer-
tainly the advanced intelligence of the age than
her superfluously elaborate but barbaric finery.
We are far from advising a general indiffer-
ence to dress, however justifiable we might think
the renunciation of some of the superfluities of
modern female costume. Chesterfield, in urging
upon his son a due attention to his clothes, says
a man of sense " dresses as well, and in the same
manner, as the people of sense and fashion of the
place where he is. If he dresses better, as he
thinks — that is, more than they — he is a fop ; if
he dresses worse, he is unpardonably negligent ;
but of the two, I would rather have a young fel-
low too much than too little dressed ; the excess
on that side will wear off with a little age and
reflection; but," he adds, in a sentence which
seems strong, coming from his perfumed pres-.
ence, " if he is 7iegligent at tioenty^ he will he a
sloven at forty ^ and stink at fifty years olcV
His lordship, in continuing his advice, makes
these sensible remarks : " Dress yourself fine
where others are fine, and plain where others
are plain ; but take care always that your
clothes are well made and fit you, for otherwise
AVOID EXTEEMES. 159
they will give you a very awkward air. When
you are once well dressed for the day, think no
more of it afterward, and, without any stiffness
for fear of discomposing that dress, let all your
motions be as easy and natural as if you had no
clothes on at all."
It is a canon of good taste in dress, as well as
in all other things, to avoid extremes. A person
of taste will take care not to be the last to leave
an old, or the first to assume a new fashion :
*' Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. "
He will never be singular in his dress, for, like
all well-bred people, he would escape special no-
tice in his daily walks. It is on this account
that he does not startle by a novelty, or excite
curiosity by an antiquity of costume. He will,
however, though avoiding in his dress what may
force notice, be careful so to order it that, if by
chance it should attract attention, it will be re-
marked for its taste and conformity with the ob-
servances of the refined. Such is considered dec-
orous by the cultivated of both sexes, though
women ordinarily do not allow themselves the
same discretion as men in their fealty to fashion,
which, however, in this country particularly, is
too slavishly obeyed by both sexes, with the
natural consequence that few of eit*lier are ajD-
propriately clothed.
160 DKESS OF WOEKLNG PEOPLE.
The uniformity of dress is a characteristic of
the people of the United States. The man of
leisure and the laborer, the mistress and the
maid, wear clothes of the same material and
cut. Political equality renders our countrymen
and countrywomen averse to all distinctions of
costume which may be supposed to indicate a
difference of caste. The uniformity which re-
sults is not favorable to the picturesque, and our
every-day world in America has, in consequence,
the shabby look of being got up by the Jews in
Chatham Street, and turned out in a universal
suit of second-hand clothing.
Our working-people, in vindicating their claims
to social equality by putting on their heads the
stove-pipe hat and flimsy bonnet, and clothing
their bodies in tight-fitting coats and flowing
robes, not only interfere with the picturesque,
which is of minor importance, but make, we
think, an unwise sacrifice of comfort, conven-
ience, and economy. What could be more unfa-
vorable to that free movement of the muscles
essential to those trades and occupations requir-
ing the exercise of physical force than the scant
coat and tight-fitting trowsers now in vogue?
It would be as well to put Hercules in a strait-
jacket, and set him thus accoutred to slay the
hydra, as for our muscular sons of labor to clothe
FASHION IN THE KITCHEN. I6l
themselves in suits of fashionable cut, and so to
strive at their mighty work. It is surprising
that the blouse of the French workman is not
generally adopted. Nothing can be more grace-
ful, convenient, and economical. Its lines are
flowing, its form admits of perfect freedom of
movement, and it can be made of a material
both cheap and lasting. Artists generally adopt
the blouse for work in their studios, and thus
guarantee its tastefulness as well as utility. The
free American citizen has no reason to scorn it
as a symbol of slavery. The French blouse has
vindicated its title to the drapery of a freeman
in many a bloody encounter with tyranny on
the barricades and in the streets of Paris.
As for the suitableness of the female dress of
fashion to working-day purposes no one will
venture, we suppose, to hold that crinoline is
convenient in the china-closet or safe in the prox-
imity of a red-hot stove, and that a flowing train
of silk is the most appropriate broom for the
kitchen floor. Crinoline and train, however, are
constantly found in these inappropriate places
and dangerous proximities. We can not for the
world see why Bridget and Katarina, and their
mistress too, indeed, when the occasion requires,
should not dress appropriately — to their spheres
we do not say, but to their occupations. Thev
L
162 THE CHOCOLATE GIRL.
would be gainers in every respect — in taste,
comfort, convenience, and economy. It is quite
a mistake for the female servant to suppose that
by spending her money in gaudy dress and mock
finery she advances hei? social position, though
with her rustling silk she may pass in the dark,
or, coming out of the front-door on a Sunday, be
taken at a distance for her mistress. She may
spend a half yearns wages on a flimsy bonnet, it
will not avail her — the sham lady will still be
manifest. If she has personal charms of her own
and desires that they should be appreciated, let
her take the advice of the tasteful, who will tell
her that the rude freshness of natural beauty ap-
pears to the greatest advantage in a plain set-
ting.
A white cap, a close-fitting jacket, with sleeves
neither so tight as to hinder movement nor so
loose as to lap up the gravy or sweep off the
sherry glass, and a short skirt of simple stuff —
plain or many-colored as it may be — make an
appropriate costume for the household servant.
Scraps of cotton lace, bits of bright ribbon, and
collars and cuffs of linen, may be added accord-
ing to the taste. Any one who has seen the
picture of the Chocolate Girl of the Dresden
Gallery will not doubt of the picturesque capa-
bilities of a dress which was so effective in this
TOO FINELY GOT UP. 163
particular instance that it procured a rich and
titled husband for the original of the portrait.
The female cap should be insisted on as an
essential to cleanliness by those who are not so
sentimental as to prefer to receive daily pledges
of the cook's affection in the shape of locks of
hair in the soup.
We Americans are famous for putting our best
foot foremost. This practice, however commend-
able on the whole, may be carried too far in par-
ticular instances. In our eagerness to make a
good appearance we are apt to become too de-
monstrative. This shows itself in our talk,
which is remarkable for its bold self-assertion ;
in our houses and furniture j which are made
more to attract the eye of the stranger than to
suit the taste of the possessor ; and, above all, in
our dress.
There are no such universally well-dressed
people in the world as the Americans. It is not
only that more of them than of any other nation
have good clothes to their backs, but their gar-
ments are better made and adjusted to their
persons, and worn with an easier grace. While
this much may be allowed, it can not be denied
that offense against taste and convenience of
dress, particularly as to time and occasion, is
frequent with us.
164 FINEKY IN CHURCH.
We are generally too finely got up for the oc-
casion. We are apt to be, as the French say,
eyidimancMs^ which we may translate by the
coined word Swidayfied, We often choose the
wrong time for the display of our personal fine-
ry. For example, while the peojDle of the most
refined taste avoid all exhibition of rich dress
and flaunting colors in church, we ordinarily
turn the sanctuary into a show-room for the
fashions. A well-bred French or English wom-
an always chooses her most sober and unnotice-
able dress in which to say her prayers in public,
while an American puts on her newest robe and
gayest bonnet to perform her genuflections be-
fore an admiring congregation of fellow-worship-
ers. The holiest day of the sacred calendar,
Easter Sunday, would lose all its significance in
the mind of one of our dames if unassociated
with the inauguration of the spring fashions.
She would no more think of bowing her head in
prayer on such an occasion unadorned with the
latest bonnet of the season, than walking up the
church aisle on her knees.
We shall leave our gewgawed devotees to
reconcile humiliation in worship with vanity
of dress. That is a problem which we confess
we have neither the right nor the capacity to
solve. It must be left to the conscience of the
SIMPLE ATTIKE AND PIETY. 165
bedizened worshiper, aided by tbe skillful casuist-
ry of her theological director. How far fine
clothes may affect the personal piety of the devo-
tee we do not pretend even to conjecture, but
we have a very decided opinion in regard to
their influence upon the religion of others. The
fact is, that our churches are so fluttering with
birds of fine feathers that no humble fowl will
venture in. It is impossible for poverty in rags
and patches, or even in decent but simple cos-
tume, to take its seat, if it should be so fortunate
as to find a i^lace, by the side of wealth in bro-
cade and broadcloth. The poor are so awed by
the pretension of superior dress and " the proud
man's contumely" that they naturally avoid too
close a proximity to them.
The church being the only place on this side
of the grave designed for the rich and the poor
to meet together in equal prostration before God,
it certainly should always be kept free for this
common humiliation and brotherhood. It is so in
most of the churches of Europe, where the beg- ,
gar in rags and wretchedness and the wealthiest
and most eminent, whose appropriate sobriety
of dress leaves them without mark of external
distinction, kneel down together, equalized by a
common humiliation, before the only Superior
Being. The adoption of a more simple attire for
166 RESTORING THE LEVEL.
church on the part of the rich in this country
would have the effect, certainly not of diminish-
ing their own personl piety, but probably of in-
creasing the disposition for religious observance
on the part of the poor. Want of fine dress
would no longer, as it is now, be the common
motive for staying away from the house of wor-
ship, and these would become the common places
of assemblage, as on the Continent of Europe, for
the poor and the rich. The result would not
only be favorable to general piety, but to social
harmony, since the union of all classes on one
day of the week, at least, would tend to level the
artificial barriers of separation.
" The distinctions of civil life," says Paley, in
one of his most admired passages, " are almost
always insisted upon too much, and urged too
far. Whatever, therefore, conduces to restore
the level, by qualifying the dispositions which
grow out of great elevation or depression of
rank, improves the character on both sides. Xow
things are made to appear little by being placed
beside what is great, in which manner superi-
orities, that occupy the whole field of the imag-
ination, will vanish, or shrink to their proper di-
minutiveness, when compared with the distance
by which even the highest of men are removed
from the Supreme Being, and this comparison is
OVERDEESS OF UNMAERIED GIELS. 167
naturally introduced by all acts of joint worship.
If ever the poor man holds up his head, it is at
church ; if ever the rich man views him with re-
spect, it is there ; and both will be the better,
and the public profited, the oftener they meet in
a situation in which the consciousness of dignity
in the one is tempered and mitigated, and the
spirit of the other erected and confirmed."
The same want of adaptation of the dress to
the occasion, as exhibited in female church cos-
tume, is shown by the habit prevalent among
our dames of putting on their showiest garments
whenever going out, even should it be for the
performance only of the most ordinary duty con-
nected with the household. Whether it is to
the shop to buy a dozen kitchen towels, to the
grocer's to dabble in butter, or to the butcher's
to dribble in the blood of a sirloin, she is the
same finely-dressed personage. She more fre-
quently, however, avoids the inconsistency of
performing humble duties in lofty attire by
shifting them to the lowlier and more soberly-
clad shoulders of her husband. This is' one, and
not the least, of the ill effects of this habit of fe-
male overdress. It unfits women for the simple
and unostentatious duties of household life.
Our unmarried girls are entirely overdressed.
They are allowed to wear such suits as are never
168 CAUSE OF FEMALE EUIN.
worn by modest maidens in Europe, and are
hardly seen in public upon the most matronly
persons. The young miss, flauntingly costumed,
is sure to attract a notice in the streets which
should not be agreeable to, and is hardly safe for,
virgin modesty.
Our countrywomen, as also our countrymen,
are recognized immediately on the highways of
travel by the finery of their dress. The glisten-
ing black coat and satin waistcoat, and the silk
gown and flimsy bonnet of fashion, are discerned
at once amidst the dust of the railway and the
smoke of the steamer as American national pe-
culiarities.
Apart from the obvious advantage on the
score of economy of adapting the dress to the
occasion, there are certain moral effects of higher
importance which might be expected from a na-
tional reform in this particular. Overdress leads
to false expectations, and confirms a deceitful
vanity which prompts to pretense of wealth, and
all the iniquitous means by which it may be
supported. It has more to do than any other
single cause with the fall of woman, the bank-
ruptcy of husbands, and the ruin of families. Its
effect in destroying female reserve, especially that
of the young, as it thus takes away one of the best
safeguards of virtue, makes it very pernicious.
ADVANTAGE OF MODEST DRESS. 169
The excess of dress is certainly the cause of
much of the characteristic vice of the day ; and
with the general adoption of a more modest at-
tire, there would be less temptation to that part,
at least, of the prevalent ill doing for which
women are responsible.
170 SUPERFINEKY.
CHAPTER Xm.
Superfinery of Dress. — Overdressed Women. — Slatterns at
llome. —Hygiene of Dress.— Child-hardening.— Its Cruelty
and Folly. — Stove-pipe Hats and Dress-coats.
While neatness and propriety are always
obligatory, and richness may be occasionally al-
lowed, superfinery of dress is never permissible.
This is, indeed, so far relative, that what may
be regarded as excessively ornamental or ex-
pensive for one person, may be only plain or
even mean for another. If there are to be fine
people who are neither to toil nor to spin, it
may be proper that they should be set off with
fine array. They, as the lay figures, the male
and female manikins upon which Fashion hangs
her tinsel stuffs, variegated streamers, and showy
gewgaws, may be indispensable as society is
now constituted. These, whatever superincum-
bent finery they may sustain, are only fulfilling
their vocation, but ordinary people are not call-
ed upon to submit to the same oppressiveness
of splendor.
People of nice taste will strive at a certain
PRESUMING ON MAEITAL INDIFFERENCE. 171
uniformity of dress. They will not be all shab-
biness to-day and finery to-morrow, but, Avhile
adapting their attire to the occasion, will avoid
both extremes, and thus be always decorously
dressed.
It is the overdressed dame of the promenade
and drawing-room who is the most apt to be
the slattern of the domestic parlor and nursery.
The woman who makes a point of dressing, as
she calls it, for company, is generally very indif-
ferent to the aspect she presents at home. With
her there is no decent mean between dress and
undress, the stiffness of formality and the laxity
of negligence. She is like the tragedy queen of
the play-house — a splendid sovereign before the
foot-lights, and a dirty drab behind the scenes.
The moderately dressed woman, on the con-
trary, generally makes a uniform appearance of
becoming neatness. Guided by good taste and
sense, she dresses for home, knowing that what
is decorous there Avill be always presentable to
any company elsewhere. There are many wives
of a fashionable tendency who presume too much
on marital indulgence or indifference. These
think that, after having caught their birds with
chaff, they may throw it to the winds ; but birds
thus taken are only to be kept by a continued
supply. Any woman who, after having won a
172 SHABBY NEGLIGENCE.
husband by her fashionable airs, expects to re-
tain his affections by a careless indifference to
her appearance at home, will find out probably
her mistake, and, it is to be hoped, before it may
be too late.
The most fatal error a woman can make is to
presume thus far upon her privileges as a wife.
'No man can long endure a slattern at home, and
especially if she appears the fine lady abroad,
and thus shows her contemptuous preference of
the opinion of others to his.
Women of moderate means, instead of con-
centrating their pecuniary forces upon this or
that showy and expensive article of toilette, in
order to dress for company, while they remain
in a shabby negligence at home, would do more
wisely to provide themselves with an abundant
and decorous household wardrobe. A wise and
true wife will take care that her house shall al-
ways wear an aspect cheerful and alluring to
her husband. Men confess to the weakness, if a
weakness, of being greatly attracted and influ-
enced in their disposition to love by the mere
dress of woman. Fielding, who had a wife
whom he loved, and who was altogether worthy
of his love, says of her, in that minute portraiture
of her charms in his "Amelia," that with the as-
sistance of a little girl, who was their only serv-
CHEAPNESS OF DECOEUM. 173
ant, she managed to dress the dinner, and like-
wise " dressed herself as neat as any lady who
had a regular set of servants could have done."
This charming woman was also equally attentive
to every other domestic duty. She took as much
pleasure in cooking " as a fine lady generally en-
joys in dressing herself for a ball." She, more-
over, " never let a day pass without instructing
her children in some lesson of religion and mo-
rality ; by which means she had, in their tender
minds, so strongly annexed the ideas of fear and
shame to every idea of evil of which they were
susceptible, that it must have taken great pains
and length of habit to separate them." Neat-
ness and order in the personal dress of the house-
wife are thus generally accompanied by regular-
ity and completeness in the performance of ev-
ery domestic duty.
To appear well dressed in the eye of the man
requires no great outlay of money, for it is noto-
rious that he prefers the elegance of simplicity
to all the display of expensive art. The neat
maid thus is not seldom more to his taste than
the showy mistress. He asks only for neatness,
fitness, and harmony of color. If women dress-
ed only to please him, they might dispense with
nine tenths of the expenditure upon their toi-
lettes. But women dress to please — we were
174 EECKLESSNESS OF FASHION.
going to, but should rather say, displease — each
other, for their main object seems to be to pro-
voke the envy of their sisters by an impossible
costliness of attire.
A not uncommon evil of the love of finery in
dress is the disregard to which it leads of the
comfortable and wholesome. The absurd, tight-
fitting black cloth dress suit is worn in midsum-
mer, and the ballroom robe of gauze in the cold-
est winter. Many a delicate frame shivers be-
neath a flimsy and imperfect covering, which is
only put on because it is conformable with some
capricious idea of becomingness. Fashion, by
her reckless disregard of the laws of nature and
health, has sent hecatombs of her most faithful
devotees to premature graves. The hygiene of
dress is a subject which has been much neglect-
ed, but deserves to be thoroughly studied.
In this country, deriving our fashions as we
do from regions in a different latitude and hemi-
sphere from our own, we seldom wear, in any di-
vision of the year, the clothes suitable to the
season. The winter garments, especially of our
women and children, are seldom warm enough.
The philosophy of dress is not difiicult to mas-
ter, for all that is required for the purpose is the
application of a few of the elementary laws of
chemistry.
PHILOSOPHY OF DKESS. 175
The popular notion that the body receives
warmth from the covering, whatsoever it may
be, that is put upon it, is, according to science,
an error. All the heat we have is of our own
making, and is the result of the perpetual com-
bustion going on in us and every living animal.
The fat of what we eat, being chiefly carbon, or
charcoal, supplies the fuel, and the oxygen of the
air we breathe may be considered the fire which
burns it. Scientifically, however, it is the act of
combination of these two elements — carbon and
oxygen — which constitutes the combustion from
which results the heat of our bodies.
The only purpose of dress, apart from satisfy-
ing the demands of decency and fashion, is to
facilitate or prevent the escape of the natural
warmth of the animal system. In summer we
accordingly try to get rid of it, and in winter,
on the contrary, we strive to retain it. The for-
mer is done by covering the body lightly with
such materials as favor, and the latter by cloth-
ing ourselves heavily with such textures as op-
pose the passage of heat. The dress of summer
is accordingly of thin, close texture, ordinarily
white in color, and composed of cotton or linen.
That of winter is of a thick, loose texture, gener-
ally black or dark, and made of silk and wool.
This, which is the result of the experience of
176 CHEMISTRY OF DKESS.
ages, accords in every respect with the principles
of science.
Chemistry divides substances into conductors
and non-conductors of heat. Tissues of close,
thin texture, such as cotton and linen, are good
conductors, and thus are suitable for summer
dress, as they conduct away or carry off rapidly
the warmth of the body. Thick, loose textures,
made of wool or silk, are, on the other hand, no7i^
or bad conductors, and do not conduct away or
carry off rapidly the animal heat, and are thus
adapted to clothing the body in winter.
Dr. Franklin's experiment proves that color
has a decided influence upon the absorption of
solar heat. He spread several pieces of cloth
of varied tints upon the snow exposed to the
warmth of the sun, and found that the snow be-
neath the black melted the most rapidly, and
that below the white the least so. Whenever
the wearer is exposed to the rays of the sun, he
will find a black dress hotter than a white one.
In winter, accordingly, he will do well to choose
the former, and in summer the latter.
The make as well as the material of the dress
has a great deal to do with its warmth. The at-
mosphere is the worst of all conductors of heat.
Accordingly, a loosely-made garment, which in
its various folds incloses an abundance of air.
SUMMER AND WINTER CLOTHING. 177
must necessarily be a greater obstacle to the es-
cape of the warmth of the body than a close-fit-
ting dress. The non-conducting power of wool-
en and other loose fabrics is mainly owing to the
large interstices of the tissue being filled with
air.
A loose dress is, moreover, warmer, because it
admits of the free circulation of blood, while a
tight one impedes it by constricting the vessels,
and thus hindering that free supply of the ele-
ment essential to keeping up the brisk combus-
tion upon which depends the due heating of the
body.
Winter clothing, then, to be warm, should be
of thick, loose textur.e, as cloth, flannel, and oth-
er woolen stuffs, dark in color, and of a cut so
flowing that it may embrace within its folds
stratum upon stratum of non-conducting air, and
so loose as not to pinch any where, whatever
may be the motion of the body.
The rigid application of the arbitrary laws of
fashion to children's dress is worse than an ab-
surdity — it is a cruelty. It is obvious that the
very young are entirely indifferent to, if not
absolutely unconscious of the distinctions of cos-
tume, and that they care nothing for the cut or
the stuff of a smock or a vest provided their
limbs and bodies are at ease, and free to bend
M
178 HARDENING CHILDREN.
and move. Mothers dress children to gratify
their own vanity, and are not seldom entirely
regardless of their little ones, whose health and
comfort they so frequently sacrifice. The fash-
ionable style of children's costume is often sin-
gularly inappropriate. Much of it seems to have
been devised in accordance w^th the prevalent
notion that children can be hardened, as it is
called, or rendered insensible, by exposure to the
effects of weather. This is a vulgar error, and a
dangerous one. Those who hold to it will point
triumphantly, in proof of their opinion, to those
rugged offspring of poverty, occasionally seen,
who, in spite of their nakedness, seem to defy
the cold and the storm. These, however, are the
few of the many that disease has left untouched ;
they are the hardy plants which remain in the
wastes of misery unwithered and undestroyed
by the neglect and pestilence which have decay-
ed and killed most of those of kindred growth.
It is a well-established fact that a much larger
number of the children of the poor and misera-
ble suffer from disease and die than of those of
the rich and luxurious. The offspring of misery
who survive are mostly the fortunate few en-
dowed with an inherent vigor of constitution
which is proof against the severest trials. None
but the strongest children of poverty are left.
DANGER OF EXPOSURE. 179
The weakest scion of wealth is often nurtured
by care to health and long life. Luxury may
not always make the most rational use of its op-
portunities in the bringing up of its fortunate
offspring, but it has nothing to learn from mis-
ery in the forced neglect of its unhappy proge-
ny, except that the health and life of the young
are only to be preserved by the most careful
tending.
The surface of the body can not, as is often
supposed, be hardened by continued exposure to
cold or intemperate weather of any kind. The
skin, when in a wholesome condition, is soft and
moist, and, moreover, is being constantly renew-
ed, so that, whatever may be the age of the ani^
mal, its integument is always fresh and young.
It thus constantly preserves its tenderness and
its sensibility to changes of temperature and
other impressions. It is true that certain parts
of the skin, as that in the palm of the hand of
the manual worker, does thicken and become
hard. This, however, is not a natural state ; and
if by any process the whole surface of the body
were covered with a similar shell of callousness,
its vitality would probably be destroyed. It is
necessary for the skin to retain its porousness
and moist pliability in order to perform the
function of transpiration which is essential to
180 CLOAKS AND OVERCOATS.
life. On some festive occasion or other, in Paris,
the skin of a child was covered with gold-leaf,
and died, in consequence, a few hours after, with-
in its stiff and impervious shroud of gilt.
The inherent delicacy of the skin renders it
particularly sensitive to cold and drafts of air.
It therefore requires protection. The low-neck-
ed, short, and sleeveless dress, "by which fond
mothers delight to show off the swelling busts
and rounded limbs of their darlings, is, accord-
ingly, a vanity which can not be indulged in
with safety in all latitudes and all seasons. Dur-
ing our severe winters there should be no part
of the surface of the body of a child, with the
Exception of its face, exposed to the external
air. With, however, the fiery furnaces, and the
more than tropical heat of most of our prosper-
ous interiors, the indoor clothing may be very
light, or almost nothing, provided the tempera-
ture be uniform, and all drafts and changes of
air be avoided. With the prevailing practice
of overheating our houses, there is always, on
going out, a danger in facing the winter's breath.
To escape this, the greatest possible difference
should be made between the indoor and out-
door clothing. This is obviously to be done
by relying for warmth chiefly upon the cloaks
and coats, pelisses, fur capes, and the exterior
BLACK COATS AND HATS. 181
garments which are easily put on and off. If
the under-clothing, or that ordinarily worn in-
side of the house, be too heavy, that put on on
going out is apt to be too light to protect the
body against the difference of temperature, which
is the chief danger to be guarded against.
Of course, as air and exercise are essential to
the health of the young, they must face the stern
winter of their native land, but it is a fatal mis-
take to suppose that either nature or habit can
render them insensible to its withering breath.
The only security is in warm clothing, which
must not be neglected with any absurd idea of
child-hardening.
It is quite certain that some of the ordinances
of fashion are in accordance neither with grace,
convenience, nor health, and yet few will ven-
ture to refuse compliance with them. What can
be uglier and more painful to wear than a stiff
stove-pipe hat ? and yet there is hardly any one
in London below a peer of the realm, or above a
costermonger's man, who will dare to show his
head in the streets without such a covering.
The black coat and white cravat de rigeur none
of us must venture to dispense with on certain
occasions, and yet how ugly ! They have, more-
over, the disadvantage of confounding master
and man. The Paris Figaro gives us an illustra-
182 MONSIEUR EOITHEE.
tion : " The other day a gentleman in this equiv-
ocal suit presented himself, with a package under
his arm, at the door of the celebrated modiste^
Madame W . The porter, taking him by the
cut of his coat for one of his own set, showed
him up by the servants' staircase. He took the
way indicated, and, after handing to madame a
diamond head-dress to be altered, said, ' My wife
being unable to come, I have brought it myself
Pray do it as soon as possible, and don't disap-
point her.' As he was leaving, he added, ' I
must congratulate you, madame, upon the excel-
lent arrangement of your establishment,' and ex-,
plained how he had been shown up by the kitch-
en way. The modiste was in a terrible rage at
lier porter, for the servant, as he had supposed,
was no less a personage than the great Monsieur
Rouher, the prime minister of imperial France,
who had undertaken, when in full dress for din-
ner, a commission for his wife."
EATING PEOPEELY. 183
CHAPTER XIV.
Food. — Importance of the Manner of eating Food. — The
Decency of Feeding. — Its Eifect on Health and Appetite.
— Chatted Food. — Dainty Feeders.
The first essential is to catch our hare, and the
second to cook it well, but the third is undoubt-
edly to eat it properly. A regard to the kind
of food is hardly more necessary to its enjoy-
ment and to health than the manner of eating
it. There is no country in the world where there
is such an abundance of good raw material for
the supply of the dietetic necessities of man, or
where there are so many people with the means
of obtaining it, as in the United States. It may
be added that there is hardly a nation that
derives so little enjoyment and benefit as the
American from its resources. These, which are
so plentiful with us, and, if properly used, calcu-
lated to bestow so much pleasure and physical
good, give a great deal less of either than the
meagre supplies of less productive countries.
Our abundance of food, so far from being a ben-
efit, is made, by perverse use, an injury. We
have so much that we undervalue it, and deem
184 VARIETY OF FOOD.
it unworthy of the care which is necessary in its
preparation for wholesome nutriment. We thus
confine ourselves mostly to the grosser articles
of diet, or such as are ordinarily called plain
food, and which require but little art to adapt
them to the taste.
We are entirely too carnivorous in this coun-
try. We feed too exclusively on steaks of beef,
chops of mutton, cutlets of veal, and joints of
meat. All our dishes being what the French call
pieces of resistance, the national stomach is kept
in a constant state of active assault. This over-
strains its energy, and produces that malady so
common with us which the doctors call atonic
dyspepsia ; that is, the indigestion which arises
from weakness in consequence of overwork.
The physiologists tell us that the human sys-
tem requires for its proper nutrition a variety
of food. There must be a due proportion of
oily, albuminous, and saccharine matter to ren-
der the diet of man wholesome. Neither bread,
meat, nor sugar, however necessary as a part of
the whole, is sufiicient alone to sustain the health
and vigor of man. There must be a proper quan-
tity of each in every daily meal. The experience
of good livers, with their regular succession of
courses of soup, fish, meat, vegetables, and des-
sert, have long since settled this matter of va-
SOUP AND SWEETS. 185
riety of food to their own satisfaction, and in ac-
cordance with the teachings of science. Our
country friends are apt to scorn all lessons from
such a quarter, but we assure them that in re-
gard to their manner of eating they may follow
the example of the fashionable with advantage.
We know of nothing more dangerous to health
than the higgledy-piggledy tables of our country
cousins, where flesh, fowl, fish, and all the pro-
ductions of the earth are mingled together in a
confusion that perplexes the taste, and prevents
all discrimination of choice. To eat such meals
requires the voracity which rustic labor can
alone give, and to digest them demands such a
stomach as nature refuses to man, but grants, it
is said, to the ostrich.
It is always well to begin the dinner as every
Frenchman does — with soup. This quiets the
excessive craving of the stomach, but does not
completely satisfy the hunger ; and by thus sub-
duing its voracity, prevents it from inordinate
indulgence in food that is less easy of digestion.
So also is there a good reason why the sweet
things should be eaten at the close of the dinner.
All saccharine food has the effect of quickly sa-
tiating, and, if taken at the commencement of a
meal, would satisfy the appetite so completely as
to indispose it for the other more substantial
186 THE BAR AND TEOUGH.
articles of diet necessary to the proper nourish-
ment of the body.
Human beings were never intended to be the
mere guzzlers of food that they too often are.
Though our animal appetites are a possession
that we have in common with brutes, we are
able, but they are not, to temper their grossness
with the refinements of art.
This power, which is a distinguishing feature
of man, is less often exercised than it should be,
and we consequently find the human animal eat-
ing and drinking in a manner which gives indi-
cation only of the brutal instinct. There is
nothing more suggestive of a piggery at swill-
time than an ordinary "bar-room and restau-
rant" at the hours of luncheon. In what is swal-
lowed on these occasions the human exercises
no more discrimination than the porcine animal.
As the former, with his head and elbows over
the slushy bar, gulps down the " slings and cob-
blers," and other mysterious compounds of mis-
cellaneous mixture, or bolts the indefinite oyster
stews and clam chowders, how like he is to the
latter, with his nose and fore feet in the overflow-
ing trough of swill !
The combination on each plate of the numer-
ous items of the hotel or boarding-house bill of
fare, which passes daily the unquestioning swal-
DECENCY OF FEEDING. 187
low of American voracity, is a prodigious test
of the powers of digestion. The result can not
be otherwise than derangement of the functions
of the stomach, disease of that organ, and conse-
quent weakness of the whole body.
A due attention to the grace and decency of
feeding is often the surest means of provoking
the taste of the nice. A well-presented meal
will entice the languid appetite when the same
food ill served will repel all desire. This is a
fact to be considered in the treatment of the
sick, when weakness and delicacy make them es-
pecially fastidious. Those who have had any
experience in their management know how great
is the effect of a minute attention to the manner
in which food or medicine is presented to them.
The dose seems to lose much of its nauseousness
when swallowed from the well -polished silver
spoon, and the morsel of food neatly cut and or-
derly presented acquires a finer flavor. The
connoisseur of wine would fail to catch the vague
bouquet of the rarest sherry and finest Cham-
pagne if he drank them out of an earthen pot
instead of the delicately blown glass.
In regard to eating, parsimony is by no means
the best economy of time. There may be an im-
mediate gain in hurrying through the daily re-
past, but the future loss, from ill health and pre-
188 CHATTED FOOD.
mature death, will be far greater. It is particu-
larly necessary to lengthen the American dinner,
and we know of no better means of doing this
than by dividing it into courses, and interposing
between them cheerful interludes of social talk.
A full hour at least should be spared from the
busiest day for the main repast. It should never
be slurred over by any of the miserable pretexts
of the bar-room, eating-house, or confectionery,
but treated with all the substantial considera-
tion its importance demands. Let each one
make the most of his dinner, whatever it may
be. Let it be prolonged, and freed from gross-
ness by a graceful ceremony ; and, above all, let
it be partaken of in company, for nothing is so
depressing to mind and body as solitary feeding.
"A man's body and his mind are like a jerkin
and a jerkin's lining : rumple the one, you rum-
ple the other." The physiological fact, thus apt-
ly and humorously illustrated by Sterne, is no-
where more apparent than in the mutual influ-
ence of digestion and mental emotion. Both the
brain and stomach must be at ease for either to
perform its functions properly. Cheerfulness of
mind is as essential to a good digestion as a good
digestion is essential to cheerfulness of mind.
The sudden announcement of bad news, or the
occurrence of any thing to disquiet the mind.
SOCIAL EATING. 189
will not only arrest the hunger of the sharpest
appetite for the choicest food, but produce a loath-
ing of it. To eat, if it were possible, in such a
state of mental discomfort, would be sure to re-
sult in a fit of indigestion, if not in something
more serious.
When the stomach is satisfying its ajDpetite,
the mind should not only be free from any pain-
ful emotion, but in a state of gentle and cheer-
ful excitement. " Chatted food," according to
the old proverb, " is half digested." This sug-
gests the advantage of social eating, than which
nothing is more conducive to the enjoyment as
well as the digestion of food. With the socia-
bility of a mixed dinner company there comes
just the degree of mental liveliness required.
The mind is distracted from its own preoccupa-
tions by the common talk to which each one con-
tributes, without making an exhaustive draught
upon his resources. Thus there is general ani-
mation without any individual fatigue. The
whole nervous system is, by this agreeable,
means, stirred to a gentle excitement, which is
favorable to the performance of every bodily
function, and especially to that of digestion.
Believing that sociability is an essential ele-
ment of not only the enjoyable, but digestible
dinner, we protest emphatically against solitary
190 STABVING WOMEN.
feeding, which is both a gross and unwholesome
practice. It is, however, very general among
our men of business. These have the habit of
eating while, they work. Although they drop
the pen in assuming the knife and fork, their
brains remain busy with their debit and credit
calculations, without, however, taking into ac-
count what is due to health. They rush in the
anxious interval between an offer and a sale or
purchase to the trough of some neighboring
bar-room. Here they fill their stomachs in the
shortest time with the largest quantity of sludge
— for the confused mess of stew, chowder, pie-
crust, and other miscellaneous grub hardly de-
serves any other name — and hasten back to pro-
nounce the last word of a bargain, which they
have been ruminating while bolting their din-
ner. The bargain may turn out a good opera-
tion, but the dinner will be sure to be a losing,
and, if often repeated, a fatal one.
MaYiy of our over-refined dames seem to have
adopted Lord Byron's notion, that eating is un-
becoming to woman. It is a marvel how some
of them manage to keep body and soul together
with the apparent regimen of starvation to which
they subject themselves. To see them at table,
you would hardly think them capable of the sol-
itary pea to which Beau Brummell confessed.
HAS WOMAN A STOMACH? 191
" Do you eat vegetables ?" he was asked. " I
once ate a pea," was his answer. Our delicate
dames appear to have reduced themselves to the
fabulous abstemiousness of the single blade of
grass to which the old woman had gradually
brought her cow.
At the regular repasts of the day the would-
be genteel woman never seems to be hungr}^
She takes her place at the table apparently only
as a matter of form, and handles her knife and
fork with the same lackadaisical air of indiffer-
ence as she would her painted fan at the Opera.
She may possibly sip a spoonful of soup, or swal-
low an occasional crumb of bread, to pass the
time ; but of the substantial s of beef and pud-
ding she does not take enough to " choke a daw
withal." Breakfast, dinner, and tea are no bet-
ter than so many Barmecide feasts as far as she
is concerned, and she might as well, for all she
apparently eats, take her seat at the illusive
board of Sancho Panza in Barataria.
It is hardly the genteel thing, perhaps, but we
shall nevertheless venture to say to our lady
friends, as Petruchio said to Katharine, " I know
you have a stomach." Granting the fact of the
possession of this important organ by women,
we do not see why the genteelest of them should
be ashamed of acknowledging it, and frankly do-
192 NOBLE FEEDEES.
ing what may be necessary to secure it in all its
integrity. There is only one way of doing this,
and that is filling the stomach at regular periods
with plenty of wholesome food.
In former times the most distinguished and re-
fined of women were hearty feeders, and, with-
out any of the sneaking delicacy of modern days,
made no scruples of handling a vigorous knife
and fork before the whole world. Queen Eliza-
beth and her maids breakfasted on great rounds
of beef, washed down with full tankards of strong
beer. " My lord and lady," records an observer
of the habits of the Earl of Northumberland and
his countess, " have for breakfast at seven o'clock
a quart of beer, as much wine, two pieces of salt
fish, six red herrings, four white ones, and a dish
of sprats." The Duchess of Orleans, the mother
of the famous regent, while in the full enjoy-
ment of the luxury of Versailles, in the time of
Louis XIY., wrote : " A good dish of sour-krout
and smoked sausages is, in my opinion, worthy
of a king, and there is nothing preferable to it ;
a soup made of cabbage and bacon is more to
my taste than all the delicate kickshaws they
make so much of here." It is not astonishing
that there were strong women in those days,
such as the stout wife of a Duke Ernest of Aus-
tria, who could crack the hardest nut with her
GLUT OF BON-BONS. 193
fingers, and drive a tenpenny nail home with her
fist. And the Duchess of Orleans was wont to
fi^llow the hounds from morning until night, had
been in at the death of more than a thousand
stags, and had many a serious fall. " But," she
says, "of the twenty- six falls from my horse
that I have had, I have been seriously injured
but once." Such was the toughness engender-
ed by sour-krout, smoked sausage, and cabbage-
soup !
There is very little doubt that much of the de-
bility and disease so common among the women
of our day is due to this genteel squeamishness
in regard to substantial food. It is not that
they absolutely starve themselves to death, for
many of the most abstemious at the open din-
ner are the most voracious at the secret lunch-
eon. Thus that fastidious dame, whose gorge
rises before company at the sight of a single
pea, will on the sly swallow cream tarts by
the dozen, and caramels and chocolate-drops by
the pound's weight. Women should know that
health is not possible with a daily glut of bon-
bons and pastry, but that physiology teaches,
and experience confirms, the necessity of a vari-
ous and substantial diet, such as is supplied at
the three regular meals of a well-ordered house-
hold. Let our dames get over their false shame
194 DAINTY FEEDERS.
of a vigorous use of the social knife and fork, and
learn that in rejecting publicly beef and pudding,
and devouring confectionery privately, they are
in reality gross, and not dainty feeders.
ETIQUETTE OF BREAKFAST. 195
CHAPTER XV.
Etiquette of the Breakfast. — Etiquette of the Luncheon. —
Etiquette of the Dinner.
Breakfast — we mean the genuine breakfast,
not the dejelXner d la fourchette^ or luncheon — is,
the least ceremonious of meals. By common
consent, many of the usual table formalities are
dispensed with on this occasion. Though, in a
well-regulated family, for the sake of inculcating
order and punctuality, the attendance of each
member may be required at a fixed hour, there
is generally a wide discretion left to every one
else in regard to the time of his sitting down to
breakfast.
At this informal repast each person is left free,
within certain limits, to consult exclusively his
own convenience. In the great country houses
of Europe, where a very ceremonious hospitality
is kept up, the breakfast is deemed so far an ex-
ception to the general law of strict observance
that it is served to the guests, as it might be to
so many travelers at an inn, at any hour of the
morning, in the dining-hall, or even in their own
rooms.
196 A BREAKFAST TABLE.
It is not expected that there should be a gath-
ering in the drawing-room or elsewhere of the
whole party, and a simultaneous movement to
the breakfast- table. The well -marshaled pro-
cession usual at dinner may be and is generally
dispensed with. The distinctions of rank and
age are not recognized, and the laughing child
may take precedence of the gravest dignitary.
Each one, in fact, is allowed to drop in when and
how he may. The presence of even the host and
hostess is not exacted, although, where there is
a household of children requiring the discipline
of order and punctuality, no parent should fail
to set the example of regular observance of the
hour of breakfast, as of every other meal.
The breakfast-table should be, in accordance
with the unceremoniousness of the repast, very
simply dressed. The damask table-cloth and
napkins, the service of white china, the shining
urn or kettle, the pat of butter with its crystal
of ice, the crisp loaf, and the glistening vessels
of glass symmetrically arranged, have in them-
selves a freshness very enticing to a morning ap-
petite. The oval table is both more pleasing to
the eye and convenient for use. The centre
should always be adorned with flowers if they
can be obtained, or by fruit when in season.
The dame of the house takes her jDlace at the
FINGEES IN THE SUGAR-BOWL. 197
•
head or the side of the table, and before her she
has the tray with the various vessels for prepar-
ing the usual domestic beverages — tea and cof-
fee. These, to be good, should be made up stairs
just before they are served. The old-fashioned
urn, which was a huge, ugly, funereal thing, dark-
ening the whole table with its solemn bulk, and
eclipsing the blooming face of the matron, has
given way, fortunately, to a more graceful tea-
kettle of bronze. This should be placed on the
table in front or at the side of the tray, and may
be kept boiling during the whole meal by means
of its alcoholic lamp. The hot water should be
freely used, not so much to temper the tea and
coffee as to rinse out the cups. The slop-bowl
is, moreover, a necessary vessel, which, however,
is too often wanting. Fastidious people don't
care to see the jetsons Sindi flotsams of their first
cups floating in their second. We need hardly
say that Dr. Johnson's mode of helping the sugar
is not recognized by nice people as the proper
one, any more than it was by Mrs. Thrale, who,
as we recollect, ordered the bowl to be taken
away after the learned lexicographer had dipped
his inky fingers into it. The old fellow, it is
true, took this lesson of cleanliness very ungrate-
fully, and threw, with a demonstrative but illog-
ical spite, one of Mrs. Thrale's best china cups
198 CUTTING AND BREAKING BREAD.
into the fire, saying that if the one vessel was
unfit for use after his fingers had been in it, the
other, once touched by his lips, was equally so.
In France, where they are not always as reserved
in the use of their hands as they might be, the
dames not seldom thrust them into the sugar-
basins. This French fashion we can not recom-
mend for adoption into this country.
It is not customary for fastidious people to ac-
cept of more than two cups of tea or coffee ; but
we do not know why good breeding, though
moderation and temperance in all things is one
of its cardinal principles, should confine itself
precisely to that number. Dr. Johnson used to
take a score or more at a single sitting. It has
always been recognized as a symbol — the origin
of which we do not pretend to know — of having
had enough when the drinker leaves his spoon in
the tea or coffee cup^ and of his wanting more
when it is left in the saucer. We would advise,
however, our hospitable dames not to rely too
much upon such indications. It is a conven-
ience, and is, moreover, the fashion, first set, it is
said, by no less a personage than Queen Victo-
ria, to place the whole loaf of bread on the table,
with a large knife by its side ; and this, we may
say, is the only occasion when this instrument
should be used. The bread with which each one
SOLID BREAKFASTS. 199
is served ought always to be broken, and never
cut.
The breakfast to suit a morning appetite,
which, though in a healthy person always brisk,
is somewhat unsophisticated, should be com-
posed of light and easily-digestible food. Noth-
ing is more suitable, therefore, than a farinace-
ous diet. Bread, of course, in its various forms,
must constitute the staple ; but, in addition to
these, the usual preparations of hominy and
buckwheat are excellent breakfast articles. But-
ter and molasses w^ith such food — the free use
of which it is not uncommon to prohibit to chil-
dren — fulfill, according to chemistry, an essential
part in the economy of digestion and nutrition..
Milk should always constitute a large proportion
of the morning meal, not only of children, but of
adults. Much of the vigor of muscle and brain
of the Scotch has been attributed to their free
use of oatmeal porridge and pease brose mixed
with milk.
We arc no great advocates for a solid meat
diet at the first meal of the day. In frosty
weather, a rasher of bacon, a sausage or two
conscientiously made, some whitefish, or a slice
of cold meat, may be well, but the hot steaks
and chops had better be postponed for the more
deliberate repasts. When cold meats, game.
200 COSTUME AT BREAKFAST.
and meat pies, the remnants of a previous feast,
form part of the breakfast, it is considered good
taste to banish them to the sideboard. The
hacked joint or the ragged pastry of the day
before would certainly not harmonize with the
delicate freshness and neatness of a well-set
breakfast-table. Eggs and fruit in their seasons
are always proper. In fact, the latter is more
suitable food in the earlier than in the latter part
of the day. The old proverb says, " Fruit is gold
in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at night."
It is always considered good breeding to get
through the breakfast with as little formality of
service as possible. The well bred on such oc-
casions, whatever force they may have of flunk-
ies, dispense as far as possible with their pres-
ence, and content themselves with a neatly-at-
tired and unobtrusive maid or a retiring valet,
who knows when to make a timely exit.
The simplest costume is always regarded as
the most becoming at breakfast. The matron
should make her appearance in white cap and
early-morning indoor dress; and the master of
the house may present himself almost as he will,
even in a shooting-jacket, but never in morning
wrapper or slippers. These are too suggestive
of the sick-chamber. We incontinently put our
fingers to our noses when we see them.
LUNCHEON. 201
The luncheon, which the etymologists would
persuade us is derived from clutch or climch^ and
should be consequently spelled olutcheon or clim-
cheon^ meaning simply a handful of food, has lost
much of its primitive signification. The modern
luncheon is no longer regarded by those who
know how to live as a mere sop to.be thrown to
that hungry Cerberus of the stomach, the appe-
tite, with the view of quieting only for a moment
its growlings, but a deliberate, satisfying meal.
The modern luncheon of our people is the de-
jellner d la foiirchette — the breakfast with a fork
— of the French.
*' What a breakfast ! Oh, not like your ghost
Of a breakfast in England, your curs'd tea and toast !"
Under the old name of luncheon most thriv-
ing and well-regulated families daily sit down to
the Frenchman's dejeHner d la foiirchette. When
the first breakfast, which we suppose and recom-
mend to be a light, farinaceous one of bread or
hominy, with milk, tea, or cofiee, has been taken
at eight in the morning, the more substantial
second or luncheon should be eaten about four
hours or so afterward — say at twelve or half
past twelve o'clock. The interval, however, be-
tween two solid meals can be prolonged to six
hours.
It is customary to make the luncheon serve
202 A ItEHASH LUNCHEON.
the double purpose of a second breakfast for the
grown-up members of the family, and an early
dinner for the children and servants. It is es-
sential that the young should eat their main re-
past early in the day, for, if it were postponed
until its close, they would be constantly exposed
to the danger of going to sleep wdth a full stom-
ach. The attempt to keep a child awake beyond
his natural hour for repose is seldom practicable,
and always cruel. At the same time, if by any
mischance or bad management he is gorged with
food at a late hour, it is hardly safe to put him
to bed. There is no more frequent cause of the
serious and sudden ailments of children than
yielding to the somnolency of satiety.
Thrifty housekeepers often make the luncheon
out of the remains of the previous day's dinner.
This, however, can be carried too far, for it must
be borne in mind that no rechauffe or rehash has
the nutritious qualities of a fresh dish. Grow-
ing children should not be restricted to vapid
remnants, but occasionally, at least, be regaled
with newly-cooked and juicy meat. The lunch-
eon is apt to be made of a disproportionate quan-
tity of dessert and sweets. These are often used
by well-meaning thrift to piece out the natural
scantiness of a meal composed of the leavings of
the day before. Plain puddings and pastry,
FASHIONABLE BREAKFAST. 203
when kept in proper subordination to the more
nutritious diet of meat and vegetables, will in-
jure no one, man or child, but they are superflu-
ities, and should never be allowed to take the
place of necessaries.
Of late years the luncheon, or dejelXner d la
fourchette^ has been dignified by its formal rec-
ognition by society as a ceremonious repast.
Our men of business are too sparing of their time
to give an hour pledged to trade to the delights
of a social breakfast. They accordingly content *
themselves with " slings" and " chowder," which
can be gulped down in a breath, without the loss
of a rise or fall of a Wall Street fraction. The
formal breakfast or lunch is more especially the
feast of literary men, fashionable women, and
other idlers. At their " receptions" our dames
generally serve up chocolate and cakes. Tea,
and bouillon in cups, which is simply beef broth,
are also occasionally proffered to the most inti-
mate friends. We are sorry to learn that the
wine and liqueur decanters are beginning to cir-
culate with unusual freedom at these gatherings
of the gentler sex, though unprovoked to indul-
gence by the example of the grosser instincts of
man.
There is much less formality in the serving of
a lunch than a dinner. It is seldom in this coun-
204 DRESS FOR WEDDING BREAKFASTS.
try, though generally in France, composed of sev-
eral courses. The whole repast, whatever it may
be, is set before the guest at the same time.
When one or two only are to partake of the
meal, a tray is served ; but when more, the whole
table is spread, but every thing to be eaten ordi-
narily appears upon it.
The wedding, or formal official breaikfast, is a
stereotyped affair, cast in the moulds of the con-
fectioner and restaurateur. It is little else than
the fashionable ball supper, lighted up by day
instead of gas light, and is composed, like it, of
stewed oysters, galantines, mayonnaise of fowl,
cold game, ices, pyramids, and all the knickknack-
eries of confectionery.
The proper costume at wedding and formal
breakfasts, as at all festivals before dinner, is a
morning dress. The gentlemen should wear
frock-coats, and light vests and trowsers, and
the dames their usual morning visiting drapery.
The male visitor ordinarily enters the drawing-
room with his hat in his hand, and the female
will always, unless very intimate, present her-
self with her bonnet on her head. The guests
take their places with all the ceremony of a for-
mal banquet. The bride and bridegroom always
have the precedence in the procession to the re-
freshment-room, and others take their position
IMPORTANCE OF DINNERS. 205
according to rank and age. The cavalier, in es-
corting his dame, should always give her his
right arm.
The origin of dinner-eating is coeval with the
creation of man. Dinner-giving, however, is the
later product of advanced civilization. It may
be received as an axiom that the social progress
of a community is in direct proportion to the
number of its dinner-parties. London, Paris, Vi-
enna, Berlin, and other centres of refinement re-
tain their pre-eminence by virtue solely of their
daily banquets. Abolish these, and you extin-
guish the friendly relationship of nations, the in-
timate intercourse of the cultivated and refined,
render " the feast of reason and the flow of soul"
impossible, and arrest the progress of society.
It is unquestionable that more enduring alli-
ances have been struck by diplomatists across
the mahogany than were ever agreed upon in
ministerial cabinets. Talleyrand regarded the
dinner-table the best place for the transaction
of business ; and while he himself was planted
there, he could safely leave the rest to his sub-
ordinates and scribes in the ofiice. The choice
and costly dinners of Cambaceres were ungrudg-
ingly paid for by his master Napoleon, for he re-
garded and encouraged them as powerful en-
gines of state. Who can doubt that much of
206 NUMBER OF GUESTS.
the culture of the world, with all its elements of
refined manners, intellectual converse, and taste
for science, literature, and the arts, is largely de-
pendent upon the social gatherings at the din-
ner-tables of the metropolitan cities ? Trace the
careers of any of the notable men of the world,
and mark how often their genius is seen to
sparkle at the convivial board. How much we
should lose, for example, of Johnson, Garrick,
Reynolds, Sheridan, Sydney Smith, or Theodore
Hook, if deprived of their company at dinner !
The general tone of science, literature, the fine
arts, and taste, is unquestionably sustained by
metropolitan social intercourse. If dinner-giv-
ing in its capitals were abolished, all Europe, we
believe, would relapse into barbarism. In seek-
ing for evidences of American progress in re-
finement, we should count the number of daily
dinner-parties, on the great increase of which of
late there is reason to congratulate not only all
lovers of good cheer, but friends of their coun-
try.
The number of persons at a dinner-party, ac-
cording to an old saying, should never be " more
than the Muses [nine], or less than the Graces"
[three]. Brillat Savarin says : "Let not the num-
ber of the company exceed twelve." He, like
all his countrymen, stops suddenly short of the
HOW TO CHOOSE GUESTS. 207
thirteen — an ominous number in the supersti-
tious fancy of the French. Having the belief
that this number will be sure to be fatal within
the year to some one of the company, it is im-
possible to persuade thirteen to sit down to-
gether at dinner. The host, even, or some ac-
commodating guest, whatever may be the occa-
sion, will be sure to subtract himself from that
odd and inauspicious sum, should it be imfortu-
nately cast up at a convivial entertainment.*
It is too much the practice, particularly in this
country, to invite people of the same profession
or occupation to dine together. Apart from the
fact that there is usually less harmony among
such, and they are almost sure, like members of
the same family, to quarrel with each other, there
is this further objection, that their conversation
is apt to be exclusively professional. If all di-
vines, their talk will be divinity ; if all lawyers,
law; if all doctors, medicine; and if all mer-
chants, trade. The result, of course, can not be
* It would seem from this record, takdh from a French
paper, but accredited to an English one, that the same super-
stition prevails in England : "Died, John Andrew Malkeith,
aged fifty-four. His business was that of a quatorzihne, or
fourteenth man at table. He was thus often employed to
dine three or four times on the same day, and had accumu-
lated by the exercise of his functions, which were liberally
paid, the sum of $100,000!"
208 FORM OF INVITATIONS.
very grateful to the dames who may be present,
who will not care, probably, to be regaled in the
intervals of the soup and fish, or the roast and
dessert, with the perplexities of faith, the uncer-
tainties of justice, and the nauseous details of
physic. Brillat Savarin, than whom there is no
better authority, says that the guests invited to
a dinner " should be so selected that their occu-
pations shall be varied^ their tastes analogous,
and with such points of contact that there shall
be no necessity for the odious formality of pre-
sentations."
The invitations, if the party is a formal one,
should be sent about a week or ten days before
the dinner. The usual formula is simply this,
either written in a note or printed on a card :
" Mr. and Mrs. request the pleasure [or honor] of
Mr. 's company to dinner at — o'clock on .
"RS.V.P."
A formal acceptance should read thus :
**Mr. accepts with pleasure Mrs. 's invita-
tion to dinner at — o'clock on ."
All written invitations should be answered im-
mediately in writing, but especially invitations
to dinner, and should be complied with at all
hazards. If, by any mischance — as the death
of a relative, or some other serious cause — the
guest, after having once accepted an invitation.
EXACTNESS. 209*
is unable to comply with it, he must be careful
to send notice of the fact, with his regrets, at the
earliest possible moment.
At all dinner-parties the ladies and gentlemen
are expected to present themselves in full even-
ing costume. Delicate hosts and hostesses, par-
ticularly when the occasion is not a very formal
one, will take care to keep their own dresses in
due subordination, lest they may possibly out-
shine too evidently some of their guests, and un-
necessarily put them to the blush. Thus a fas-
tidious host will not seldom keep to his frock-
coat and black cravat, with a nice consideration
for some invited person who may by chance have
neglected to put on the swallow-tail and white
choker de rigiieur.
Punctuality is essential to the perfection of
dining, as it is to the proper performance of ev-
ery other social duty. A half hour's grace used
to be allowed, and it was not " the thing" to ar-
rive at the exact time appointed. Fashion, how-
ever, now sanctions what common sense has al-
ways inculcated, and men of society are expect-
ed, alike with men of business, to be exact in
their engagements.
On reaching the house, the gentleman, if ac-
companied by a lady, gives her his arm on enter-
ing the drawing-room, and the first person ad-
O
210 RIGHTS OF PRECEDENCE.
dressed should be the hostess. Very fashionable
people have a footman at the door to announce
the names of the guests as they present them-
selves. If this is not done, the host or hostess
may introduce their visitors to each other, taking
care to make as little fuss as possible about it.
When introductions are dispensed with, as they
may be with propriety, the guests should have
no hesitation in conversing freely with each other
as mutual acquaintances.
When the dinner is announced, which should
be done by the servant simply saying " The din-
ner is served," a procession is at once formed.
The host gives his Q^ight arm to the female
guest who has the precedence from age, rank, or
strangeness,- and leads her to a place at the din-
ner-table on his right, he being at the head or at
one side. Next comes the most distinguished
male guest with the hostess.* She seats herself
at the other extremity, or at the opposite side
of the table, with her cavalier on her right. The
rest follow in couples, ranked generally accord-
ing to age, and as they enter the dining-room are
placed so that the host may be flanked on either
side by a dame, and the hostess by a cavalier.
* In England the hostess often remains with her cavalier,
the most important male person, until the last, and performs
the duty of pairing the guests.
HUSBAND AND WIFE. 211
The rest of the guests are arranged in successive
couples, so that each cavalier will be between
two dames, and each dame between two cava-
liers, provided the sexual proportions of the par-
ty allow of such an arrangement. It is usual to
separate the husband from his wife, and tempora-
rily sever other domestic relations. This does
not seem flattering to the conjugal and family
ties, but the practical effect is undoubtedly-
good.
212 LATE AND EABLY MEALS.
CHAPTER XVL
Etiquette of the Dinner (continued). — After Dinner.
If you value your health you will take a sub-
stantial meal, call it what you please, at an ear-
ly hour in the day, say at noon, or thereabout.
Plain people devour this repast, terming it din-
ner, while the fashionable eat it with no less ea-
gerness, but under the appellation of luncheon^
or, as the French say, dejeHner d la fourchette.
It is unquestionably favorable to the vigor of
the body to supply it with a large, perhaps the
largest, portion of its essential ixutriment be-
tween twelve and one o'clock. The appetite is
almost universally strong at this time, and the
corporeal energies being in their fullest strength,
the function of digestion is more readily and ef-
fectively performed. We have no objection to
a late meal — in fact, a sound stomach requires
it ; but it is dangerous, nay, fatal, to postpone
the satisfaction of a hearty appetite until the
close of the day. We all require the early solid
repast, call it what you may — dinner, luncheon,
or dejeiXner a la fourchette. The later meal, if
HOW TO ENJOY DINNER. 213
subordinate, is also beneficial, and it matters
not whether you eat it as the humble supper or
as the stately dinner.
The mistake which is made by many who
take a late dinner is, that they make it serve
the purpose of both dinner and supper. Instead
of taking in the middle of the day, as they
should, a good deliberate meal, of Avhich meat
ought to form the chief part, they jDut off the
appetite with a dry biscuit, which appeases hun-
ger, but fails to nourjsh the body. It is dan-
gerous to abandon the early dinner without an
equivalent in the form of the solid luncheon.
All epicures agree, moreover, that, to appreciate
a recherche dinner, it must not be eaten with the
voracity of the man famished by a whole day's
hunger, but approached with the cool delibera-
tion of a person in the full command of all his
faculties, dietetic and aesthetic. This he can not
have unless he has subjected his appetite by a
proper satisfaction of its requirements at the ear-
ly and natural feeding-time, of the day. " To ap-
preciate your dinner, you must eat lunch," is an
axiom in the science of gastronomy.
Considering the fashionable dinner as dietet-
ically subordinate to the solid noonday repast,
the hour of its occurrence becomes of compara-
tively little importance. In England people sel-
214 HOW TO SEEVE DINNEE.
dom sit down to it before seven or half past sev-
en or eight o'clock. In France six is the usual
hour ; and the fashionable peoj)le of the United
States seem generally inclined to follow the
French in this, as in other things. If our advice
and a substantial meal at noon be taken, we
would recommend the ceremonious repast of the
day never to be eaten earlier than half past five.
The ordinary mode of serving a dinner is the
French one. The various dishes are placed
upon the table just as they leave the hands of
the cook, and, being carved by host and hostess,
are distributed by the servants to the guests.
For formal occasions, however, the Russian mode,
or the diJier d la JRusse, has become fashionable.
The dishes, when this style is adopted, are not
served until cut up, when they are handed in
succession to each guest by the waiters. The
table is adorned in the centre with flowers, and
fruit fresh and sugared, various galantines of
fowl and game, and ornamental confectionery.
The plates of soup are generally put on the table
before the guests are called in, and a bill of fare,
as well as the name of each person, to indicate
the seat he is to take, printed or written upon a
card, is placed on the napkin.
Under each soup-plate there is one of the or-
dinary kind. On the right of this there are a
DUTIES OF THE HOST. 215
napkin, a piece of bread, four glasses — the tum-
bler first, then the Madeira, then the claret, and
finally the Champagne glass. Two large knives
and forks are placed with the knives on the right
and forks on the left of each guest ; and when
the dessert is to be eaten, a silver knife and fork
and spoon are served upon the small plate, with
the finger-bowl and doily. The guest, on receiv-
ing these, spreads his doily on his left, deposits
the finger-bowl upon it, and noiselessly sets his
knife on the right and his fork and spoon on the
left.
The first duty of the entertainer is to see that
his friends are well served. " The host who has
compelled a guest to ask him for any thing is al-
most a dishonored man." He should anticipate
the w^ants of all.
The old rule that " no one asks twice for soup"
may now almost be said to be true in regard to
all the dishes. Such is their number, and the
systematic succession in which they are served,
that few want " more," or care to ask for it, for
fear of deranging the order of a well regulated
dinner. The host and hostess, however, when
carving, will not fail to invite each guest to a
renewed attack, especially upon the substantial
dishes before them; but an excessive entreaty
to eat is not in good taste, and a refined guest
216 A GOOD DINNER.
never expects it. In the Russian dinner the
servants make a second round with all the arti-
cles except the soup, but the opportunity thus
offered for " a cut and come again" is seldom
availed of.
The guest should commence eating as ^oon as
helped, and not wait, as some people, with a
strain at excessive politeness, do, until all are
served, and thus produce an awkward pause of
staring expectancy.
The ordinary French dinner consists of soup,
fish, hors cToeiivres^ such as olives, anchovy salads,
radishes, etc., eaten during the early pauses of
the dinner ; entrees^ or side-dishes, consisting of
pates^ croquettes^ etc. ; roast meats, vegetables,
and sweet dishes, such as puddings, soufflets,
and hot confections ; and, lastly, a dessert of
cheese, fruits, cakes, sweetmeats, and ices. The
coffee follows. These various dishes are served
and eaten in the order in which they are named.
We in this country vary somewhat the French
mode. We eat, for example, potatoes with fish,
and all other vegetables with the dishes of meat.
The salad is eaten just before the sweets, and
often with the roast fowl or game. The Earl of
Dudley, an English lord and fastidious diner,
used to say, "A good soup, a small turbot" (a
fish we haven't in America), " a neck of venison.
KISING FROM TABLE. 217
ducklings with green peas, or chicken with as-
paragus, and an apricot tart, is a dinner fit for
an emperor — when he can not get a better." A
still simpler one ought to content the sovereign
people of a republic. Say: soup, salmon and
peas, a pair of boiled chickens, and a roast joint,
with the various vegetables, followed by a good
pudding or tart, and the usual knickknackeries of
confectionery. If a brace of partridges, or a pair
of canvas-back ducks, with the accompaniment
of either a salad or currant jelly, should be add-
ed, and eaten just before the dessert, the ban-
quet will be one which ought to satisfy the most
exacting of guests in this democratic country.
It is seldom now that there is any removal of
the table-cloth or disclosure of the mahogany.
This is rendered unnecessary by a free use of
large napkins, which are so placed as to protect
the main covers where exposed, and be readily
changed without fuss or derangement of the
general order of the service. When the dinner
has been eaten, the French — and decorous people
every where should do likewise — all rise togeth-
er, cavaliers and dames, and return to the draw-
ing-room in the order they left it. Here the cof-
fee and tea, together with liqueurs, are served ; and
after an hour or so, unless the evening is to be
prolonged by the arrival of additional company.
218 DINNER OBSERVANCES.
and a supplementary dance or other amusement,
the guests disperse to their homes. A call of
ceremony upon the late hostess — which can be
made in person or by sending a card, some time
during the succeeding week — is the becoming-
thing, though often neglected by the ignorant or
indifferent.
We need not go so far back into the elements
of breeding as some writers on etiquette have
done, and remind our well-bred readers that it is
not considered polite to pick one's teeth with a
fork at the dinner-table, and that the water in
the finger-glasses is not to be drunk, but to be
used to wash the hands. The various observan-
ces of dinner ceremony are not so frivolous as
they may appear. For example, it will be found
that it is most convenient oiot to take soup twice,
not to put the knife into the mouth, and not to
allow the waiter to serve the guests on the right.
Two plates of soup are too much fluid for any
stomach at the beginning of a dinner; a knife is
a cutting instrument, and may do mischief if in-
troduced between the lips ; and nothing can be
more awkward, as you will find on trying, than
the attempt to take any thing from a waiter on
the wrong, or right-hand side.*
* The servants should always serve each one at table on
his left. There is a story told of a negro seiTant of Wash-
ONE AT A TEVIE. 219
At a large dinner-party it is better to confine
your powers of entertainment to your immediate
neighbors, and avoid bawling out to those oppo-
site or at a considerable distance from you.
Where the service is limited, you — if of the mas-
culine gender — must attend constantly to the
wants of the dames immediately under your
wings. Avoid all gross heaping up of your
plate. As a general rule, refuse to be served
with more than one kind of meat and vegetable
at a time. There are certain things which are
ington, who, not being able to distinguish between the right
and left, was instructed to serve the guests on the side where
he saw no buttons, which it was then customary to wear in
a single row on the right breast of the coat. With this guide
Pompey found it plain sailing until there came a guest fresh-
ly arrived from France with the new fashion of a double row
of buttons. Pompey looked first at the one side and then at
the other, and was for a moment terribly perplexed. He,
however, soon came to the wise conclusion that the gentle-
man, having two sets of buttons, was entitled to be waited
upon all around, and accordingly grasping the plate with two
hands, thrust it over the guest's head with a grin of triumph.
Servants ordinarily wear white gloves, or have the thumb
wrapped in the corner of a napkin while handing any thing.
Some would-be exquisite guests sit down to dinner gloved,
but this is an inconvenient practice which an intelligent re-
finement does not recognize. Where the service is complete,
a guest should not give unnecessary trouble to his neighbors
by calling upon them to exercise any part of the functions for
the performance of which a proper number of efficient per-
sons are especially provided.
220 RISING TOGETHEE.
supposed to be sufficiently harmonious for a com-
bination — as, for example, ham and boiled chick-
en, rice or potatoes and tomatoes. There is one
good rule which, if followed, will make you an
acceptable guest every w^here: Be not obtru-
sive. Do every thing smoothly and quietly.
Talk in a low tone of voice, and handle your
knife and fork and plate without clatter, and eat
without any audible gulping and smacking of
the lips.
It was once an essential part of the dinner-ta-
ble etiquette in England, and in America by in-
heritance, for the ladies to retire after the des-
sert and a first round of the wine decanters. The
confessed purpose of the practice was to allow
the gentlemen to indulge freely in strong drink
and loose talk, unchecked in their grossness by
the restraining influence of refined women. Pol-
ished France has given us a lesson of better
manners, and the social dinner is now less often
marked by this coarse reminder of the diverg-
ence of the brutal instincts of one sex from the
delicate sentiments of the other. The more re-
fined people in England and the United States
now generally adopt the French practice of all
rising together from the dinner-table. The ef-
fect of this simple change in etiquette has been
very great and most beneficial. Drunkenness,
RETURN TO THE DRAWING-ROOM. 221
once a fashion and almost esteemed a social vir-
tue, is no longer admitted in respectable com-
pany, but has been forced to slink away to the
bar-room and other haunts of vice.
When the dinner is over and the half of an
hour or so has been passed in talk and trifling
with the dessert, the hostess gives the signal by
rising from the table, and all return to the draw-
ing-room in the order they left. Here coflee and
tea are provided, and it is good taste to have
them served with as little formality as possible.
The less exhibition of the flunkey force on the
occasion the better. The tray having been
placed by the servant on the table, the dame of
the house pours out the beverages, whatever
they may be, and invites her guests to partake
of them. The gentlemen, of course, take care of
the ladies before they take care of themselves,
but all is done quite unceremoniously. It is sel-
dom, in fact, that a person takes a seat, but all
remain standing, or walk about the drawing-
room, conversing or admiring the pictures, arti-
cles o^virtiX^ and whatever else may invite notice.
The visit to the drawing-room, being merely de-
signed to graduate the farewell, and thus render
the departure less abrupt, is naturally informal,
for it is but a ceremony in an incipient state of
dissolution. The stay after dinner, unless addi-
222 TAKING LEAVE.
tional company has been invited, and there is a
supplementary evening party, is seldom prolong-
ed beyond half an hour, when leave is quietly
taken.
ANCIENT AND MODEEN ENTEETAINMENTS. 223
CHAPTER XVII.
Ancient and Modern Hospitality. — Etiquette of the Evening
Party and Ball. — The Effect of late Parties. — Manners
and Morals. — Treatment of Servants.
Hospitality, as practiced by our ancestors,
can hardly be said to exist • any longer. The
word, in fact, is nearly obsolete. The ceremoni-
ous displays of fashion have usurped the place
of the social entertainments of friendship. No
one hardly pretends nowadays that, in spread-
ing a table or opening his drawing-rooms, he is
actuated by an impulse of generosity or friend-
liness. He is nuerely complying, as he is ready
to acknowledge, with the exactions of fashion,
and takes no more credit to himself for the pro-
fuse bounty of his dinners and costly splendor
of his balls than for the graceful cut of his coat
or elegant turn of his boot. His feelings have,
in fact, no more to do with the one than his taste
has with the other. Both are devised by a set
of trades - people, who have become, by some
means or other not easy to determine, the minis-
ters of that power, of which, though no one knows
the origin, all are forced to acknowledge the au-
thority.
224 UNIFORMITY OF FASHIONABLE PARTIES.
Balls, evening parties, soirees, recej)tions, or
whatever else they may be called, are entirely
arranged and controlled by Fashion and her ad-
ministrators. The hired master of ceremonies,
the upholsterer, the florist, the pastry-cook and
confectioner, are, in fact, the dispensers of mod-
ern hospitality^ if we may be permitted the sac-
rilegious use of that sacred word in such a con-
nection.
The ordinary evening parties or balls of our
large cities are so much alike, that a dame
whisked off*, in the old mysterious way of the
fairy-books, from one to the other, and set down
within the arms of a fresh cavalier, would hard-
ly be conscious of a change even in the pair of
mustaches by which her cheek is titillated in
the waltz.
Cards are generally issued from ten days to
four weeks before the ball or dancing-party to
the various persons on the fashioifable list, sup-
plied by a Brown or some other hired undertaker
of public ceremonials. This is the usual form
of invitation, engraved upon a card or vi^ritten
upon note-paper:
" Mrs. A. [or B.] requests the honor [or pleasure] of Mr.
's company on the evening of ■ , at half past eight
o'clock. R.S.V.P."
The hour is more frequently left unmentioned ;
INVITATIONS. 225
and, even when specified, the guest is not expect-
ed to be punctual. None but the most intimate
friends think of going to a formal and fashion-
able party, where there is to be dancing, before
half past nine or ten o'clock, and an invited per-
son may enter with propriety at any hour, how-
ever late, during* the night. Whether an answer
is requested or not by the letters R. S. V. P. (re-
pondez, sHl vous plait — " answer, if you please"),
it must be sent in a day or two, and written in"
the same formal style as the invitation, the ac-
ceptance of which may be thus expressed :
* ' Mr. T. accepts with pleasure the polite invitation of Mrs.
A. for the evening of ."
A refusal should be written as follows :
"Mr. T. regrets that he can not accept the polite invita-
tion of Mrs. A. for the evening of ."
When an invitation is accepted, it must be, if
possible, faithfully complied with. It is not sel-
dom that an invited person takes an unmvited
friend to a ball or evening dancing-party, but he
ought not to do so without first asking permis-
sion of the giver of it. As he is not likely to be
refused, he must hold himself entirely responsi-
ble for the character and conduct of his compan-
ion, who, previous to and after the party, should
send a card.
It is a good rule for those who are not able or
P
226 ENTERING THE KOOM.
inclined to dance to refuse all invitations to Ijalls
and other parties where the guests are exj)ectcd
to do so. This is, of course, not to be regard-
ed as obligatory where dancing is but a supple-
ment of the general business, and card-playing,
conversation, and other occupations are to form
parts of the social labor of the evening.
On descending from the dressing-rooms, which
should be always provided, the guest .makes his
Nvay at once to the dame of the house, and, after
a conventional phrase or two, yields his place to
the next cgmer. When a gentleman is accom-
panied by his wife or any other lady, he should
always wait for her before entering the drawing-
room, and, giving her his right arm, escort her
to the presence of the hostess. It is regarded as
decorous to abandon her then to the tender mer-
cy of the general politeness. " You must nev-
er dance with your wife except as a freak, when
every body else in the quadrille does the same,"
says a cold-blooded, but, we presume, an unques-
tionable authority.
The polite hostess takes care to mark her con-
duct for the lyght by a total abnegation of self
Her toilette is carefully subdued, so that it may
not surpass the average splendor, and her tri-
imiphs are sought in the brilliancy of the occa-
sion, and not in the eclat of her own personality.
DUTIES OF A HOSTESS. 227
She is constantly seeking opportunities of dis-
play for her guests, that they may shine in the
brightest and most favorable light while she is
obscuring herself. She is pre-eminently the en-
tertainer, and seeks her own enjoyment in that
of others. She especially takes care to treat all
her guests with a zealous and equal courtesy.
She recognizes no distinctions of rank, birth, or
wealth, and acknowledges no precedence beyond
what society universally exacts. She waives for
the occasion all favoritism, and rather neglects
a friend than fail to show attention to a stran-
ger. In these days she has little to do with the
more material part of the entertainment. The
arrangement of this mainly devolves upon the
florist, the conductor of music, the restaurateur,
and the hired master of ceremonies, but she
carefully sees to the fulfillment by each of his
special vocation. At supper, of which she is
the last to partake, she watches closely the con-
duct of the servants, and is quietly but constant-
ly urging them to their duty. The husband or
the gentleman of the house has subordinately
the same offices to perform and bearing to main-
tain as the hostess, but, while she is more exclu-
sively occupied with the male, he is particularly
devoted to the female guests.
Every gentleman should escort a lady to the
228 SOCIAL OFFENDERS.
vsupper-room, and, after attending to. her wants
or tastes, never forget to return with her to the
ball or drawing rooms, for nothing can be more
impolite than to leave an " unprotected female"
to shift for herself amid the tumult of a crowd
of modern party-guzzlers. During the dance all
should be exclusively devoted to their partners,
and never allow themselves to keep up, by con-
versation or the telegraph of the eye and face, a
communication with others.
Even those people who are familiar with all
the formalities of fashionable society are often
the worst offenders against the common decen-
cies of life. It may be as well to remind such
that it is by no means decorous to pass most of
the night in the dressing-rooms smoking cigars,
and so infecting their persons with the disagree-
able odor that their presence becomes insuffera-
ble to every decent nose. It should also be
borne in mind that decorum in the use of wine
is not to be measured by the generosity of the
host in supplying it. The consumption, how-
ever, of Cliampagne is not seldom in proportion
to its abundance, and there are, in consequence,
occasional scenes at our dancing-parties which
bring the Fifth Avenue very close to Water
Street. Among the vicious results of ill-regu-
lated fashionable intercourse are observable a
* EVILS OF LATE PAKTIES. 229
want of respectful reserve between our young
people of both sexes, an interchange of slang
phrases, audacious and dangerous flirtations, and
a general defiance of the prudent restrictions of
home.
The length to which the ordinary dancing-
party or ball is prolonged is a serious evil. In
our working community there are but few who,
if they dance all night, can sleep all day, for most
of the gay cavaliers of the evening are the busy
drudges of the morning. Our youthful damsels,
it is true, by the mistaken indulgence of their
parents, can, if their excited nerves will let them,
sleep away as many of the twenty-four hours as
they please, but their partners can not, for they
are wanted, for the most part, at the shop and
counting-house. The mere loss of sleep, the re-
cuperative influence of which is so necessary,
must be a serious damage to the health of the
young gallants who strive to comply with the
requirements both of fashion and business. We
would advise our friends to be always among
the earliest to leave a fashionable partyo There
is, moreover, no rule of politeness which exacts
a very prolonged stay.
A visit is expected on some day during the
week after a ball or evening party. A card
willa however, be generally accepted from the
230 HUMAN NATURE OF SERVANTS. "*
busy male as a substitute, though a personal ap-
pearance is exacted from the more leisurely
dame.
"There is a great deal of human nature in the
world," said Jacob Faithful, and it is to be pre-
sumed that servants have their fair share of it.
Housekeepers, however, would seem unwilling to
concede this ; and we should judge from the
manner in which many of them treat their do-
mestics that they regarded them as of an organ-
ization entirely different from their own, with no
portion of that abundant human nature of which
Marry at's hero spoke.
Servants are ordinarily regarded by their em-
ployers as so many pieces of mechanism con-
structed to do a certain quantity of work of a
particular kind, according to their especial func-
tions, whether as cook, nurse, chamber-maid, or
waiter. There are indispensable household re-
sults to be accomplished daily. The beef must
be roasted and the potatoes boiled, the baby fed
and dandled, the rooms swept and beds made,
the hall-door opened and table served, and the
Irish Bridgets and German Katerinas are the
machines provided to execute these oiDcrations.
Should they by chance show any tendency to
rest from work or diverge from its object, the
ever-watchful superintendent infers that the ma-
MISTEESS AND MAID. 231
chinery is imperfect, and rejects it. If Bridget,
for example, should by hazard fancy that she
was human, and fall in love with some stray
Patrick, and Katerina, under a similar delusion,
become conscious of a patriotic sentiment, and
steal away with Hermann to the Schutzenfest or
some other festive reminder of the fatherland,
they would be sure to be condemned as worth-
less by many mistresses of the household.
It is astonishing how completely the human
nature of the servant is ignored by her employ-
er. The single pair of stairs which leads from
the parlor to the kitchen would seem to separate,
as it were, by an unfathomable abyss, the wom-
an above from the woman below. The former
has no sympathy for the feminine instincts of
the latter ; she will not, in fact, admit of their
existence. The mistress, however conscious of
her own feminine tendencies and inclined to in-
dulge them, will not recognize or give any scope
to such in her servant. The former may coquet,
love, and marry, and will complacently regard
herself as fulfilling her vocation ; the latter is
forbidden the companionship of her male friends,
and is denounced as a trollop if she is caught
passing a stolen word to the baker or butcher at
the back door. In England a female servant is
always asked, before she is employed, whether
232 INTIMACY WITH SERVANTSo
she has any "followers." By "followers" are
meant suitors. If the poor creature confesses to
this very natural result of a pretty face or some
other female attraction, she is condemned at
once. This cruel exaction of the servant-woman
that she should neither love nor be loved is also
not unfrequently made in this country, though
differently expressed. " No visitors allowed" is
the usual form of the harsh ordinance of our
task-mistresses.
The want of a due recognition of the claims
of the servant to human sympathy is shown,
moreover, in the habitual reserve of their mis-
tresses. There is not only that cold formality
of relation which forbids any warmth of attach-
ment, but a studied avoidance on the part of the
employer of all knowledge of the intimate and
personal interests of the employed. Hence there
is complete ignorance and a consequent want of
mutual confidence. Fidelity can only come from
love, and love implies intimacy. Mistresses, in
fact, are not sufficiently intimate with their serv-
ants. If they have real dignity and a personal
superiority of their own, they need not fear any
degradation from a closer contact with their
subordinates, for the advantage of height will
only become more apparent by the opportunity
of comparison with lowness.
OBLIGATION OF CIVILITY. 233
A closer sympathy of the employer with the
employed is particularly important as regards
the servant in relation to children. The educa-
tion of the latter is greatly dependent upon the
character of the domestic with whom the child
must be necessarily in constant and close com-
munion. By improving her servant, the mother
will find that she is indirectly but surely elevat-
ing her offspring.
A more complete recognition of the human el-
ement of the servant will be found not only ad-
vantageous, but may soon become absolutely nec-
essary. The servant has her future in America
as well as others. We can not always calculate
upon the present supply of the raw material of
Germany and Ireland, which requires only to be
kept in working order by an abundance of beef,
potatoes, and wages. Employers will be forced,
sooner or later, to seek for their servants exclu-
sively among civilized people, and to compensate
them not only by a fair day's pay for a fair day's
work, but by a treatment which will recognize
to its fullest extent their human dignity.
There is no surer sign of ill breeding and ill
feeling than the rude treatment of dependents.
The obligation of civility to servants should bo
inculcated especially upon the young American,
who ought to learn at the earliest period that
234 POLICY OF GOOD TREATMENT.
the accidental relation of advantage of position,
which is ever alternating in a country free from
prescriptive right, gives no title to a haughty
demeanor and a domineering conduct. The rec-
ognition of the mutual obligation of master and
man, and mistress and maid, is a certain sign of
the true gentleman and lady, who will never ex-
act from those temporarily placed in subjection
to them the civility they are unwilling to be-
stow. The "thank you," "please," and other
courteous expressions of a kindly consideration
of the obligation of the employer to the emploT^ -
ed, will be freely proffered by all who are fully
conscious of their social duties and willing to ac-
knowledge them. Policy, as well as good breed-
ing, inculcates the necessity of gentle treatment
and courteous behavior to servants, who will sel-
dom fail to respond with a more zealous service
and a readier obedience to exactions and com-
mands rendered less harsh and domineering by
a soft word and a subdued mastery.
TISIITNG LISTS. 235
CHAPTER XVIII.
Visiting Lists. — Report of the Proceedings of a Morning
Visit. — Etiquette of Visits and Cards. — New- Year's Visits.
—At Home, or not at Home ?~P. P. C.
Every dame nowadays has what is called a
visiting list. This is composed of a number of
persons of her own sex who spend money, dress,
and make calls very much as she herself does.
Ko other sympathy than is indicated by these
is required by mutual visitors of the fashionable
sort. They need not be friends ; it is not, in feet,
necessary that they should be acquaintances, and
we actually know of two dames who not long
since met in the street and looked into each
other's face as perfect strangers, though they
had been on visiting terms for the last ten years
or more. There is so little substance in this kind
of social relationship that its obligations can be
as Avell performed by a mere symbol as the per-
son it represents, and thus a bit of card-board,
with nothing but a name upon it, frequently
serves every purpose.
Visitors, however, do occasionally meet, and,
according to a very good authority, this is the
result :
236 A VISITING SCENE.
Mes. a. " How delighted I am to see you ! It
is an age since I have had this pleasure ! What
a charming bonnet !"
Mes.B. "You think so?"
Mrs. a. " It is perfect ! But any thing upon
you loots Avell."
Mrs. B. "I never saw you looking better; that
morning dress is so becoming ! I have just left
Mrs. C. She was horribly dressed."
Mrs. a. " How can it be otherwise with such
an ugly creature ? What a beautiful sack that
is ! Who made it for you ?"
Mrs. B. " Madame Bonnechose. Have you
seen Mrs. C. lately?"
Mrs. a. " No ; and I don't care to see her ; she
is such a fool. You know that affair ?"
Mrs.B. "Yes; with Mr. T."
Mrs. a. " I will have to refuse to see her if she
calls again. You are going already ?"
Mrs. B. " Yes ; I have some shopping to do."
Mrs. a. " Don't be so long again, my dear
Mrs. B., before coming, and another time don't
go away in such a hurry."
Soon after the departure of Mrs. B., who goes
to another house, where she reports that Mrs. A.
was looking as yellow as a pumpkin, and wore
such a common-looking morning dress, Mrs. C.
and Mrs. D. arrive.
VIPEES AND TOADS. 237
Mrs. a. " How kind it is of you to call ! It
is an age since you have done me this favor !
What a beautiful lace veil ! my dear Mrs. C. ;
and those shoes of yours, Mrs. D., are exquisite;
but no wonder, with such feet !"
Mrs. D. " Don't talk of my feet ; it's you who
have a foot worth talking about."
Mes. a. "Mrs. B. has just been here."
Mes. C. "Why, she told me she didn't visit
you any more."
Mes. a. " What ! If she don't take care, what
she says may come true. You know what peo-
ple say about her — "
Mes. D. " It's disgusting !"
Mes. a. " She had the ugliest bonnet on you
ever saw ; and such a sack ! I could hardly keej)
from laughing. And such a bore I I could hardly
get rid of her. You are going already ? Don't
be so long another time before coming to see me ;
and try, when you do come, my dear Mrs. C, and
you too, my dear Mrs. D., to stay a little longer."
If such, as it has been reported to us, is the re-
sult of these fashionable visits when made in
person, then, for goodness' sake, let them be per-
formed symbolically, and those fine dames of
" society," Mrs. A., Mrs. B., Mrs. C, and Mrs. D.,
spared the necessity of opening their mouths
and letting out vipers and toads, like the little
238 ADVANTAGE OF FORMALITY.
girl in the fairy tale, and the other abominable
things of scandal and falsehood.
There are certain occasions when society ex-
acts the payment of formal visits, as, for exam-
ple, in exchange for a call of courtesy ; after an
invitation to a dinner, ball, or other ceremoni-
ous entertainment ; after weddings, births, and
funerals ; on any occasion deemed worthy of per-
sonal congratulation ; on the return of a visiting
acquaintance to his residence, whether in town
or country ; and on the arrival and stay of a vis-
itor at the house of a friend.
It would seem to be the object of modern
fashion to interpose as many formalities as pos-
sible between the members of society, in order
to prevent intimacy of contact. This, perhaps,
is a necessary result of the immense expansion
of the great cities, and the consequent widening
of the social relation. It would be manifestly
impossible, if every fashionable acquaintance be-
came an intimate friend, and thus entitled to the
freedom of familiarity, to retain any of that per-
sonal reserve which is essential to self-respect.
No one, moreover, with even the smallest visit-
ing list, if each person in it had the liberty of an
intimate, and could present himself when, where,
and how he pleased, would be able to find time for
the performance of the ordinary duties of daily
VISITS AND CARDS. 239
life. It is well, perhaps, therefore, that a bit of
card-board, with nothing but a name upon it, has
been generally accepted as a symbol of, and sub-
stitute for the formal visit. All society has rea-
son to rejoice in a device by which the bore has
been politely but effectually balked of his vic-
tims. On most ceremonious occasions, there-
fore, the bit of pasteboard is gratefully accepted
in lieu of a visit. There is no fixed regulation
in regard to the size, form, and character of the
card and the inscription, but all extremes and
marked peculiarities should be avoided. It is
customary to prefix to the name military and
naval indications of rank, the ordinary titles of
Mr., Mrs., and Miss, and the professional ones,
such as Right Rev., Rev., and Dr. ; but in this
country Hon. and Excellency, for which there is
no warrant but courtesy, are never taken by the
unassuming. The address is generally engraved
in modest letters in a corner. It is deemed
proper for a person to leave the card himself, or
send it by his own servant, but not by the post
or street porter. When one calls with the view
of making a personal visit, and is not admitted,
he indicates the fact of its personality by turn-
ing down a corner or broad edge of the card.
This, however, may be but a caprice of fashion,
destined soon to yield to some other of a totally
240
different kind. Even when admitted to a house
it is right to give the servant a card, by which
the person visited may be made unmistakably
cognizant of the name of the visitor. If there
are several persons in the same house entitled to
calls, a card should be left for each. A male
visitor ordinarily takes off his great-coat before
entering the drawing-room, but carries his hat
in his hand. His visit should be short, and gen-
erally brought to a close whenever another, who
is not a common friend of himself and the mis-
tress of the house, arrives.
In France, Avhenever a new-comer of recog-
nized respectability fixes his residence in a place,
he or she is expected to make the first calls.
This, however, is not the rule in England and
America, where the settled residents are ex-
pected to pay the initiatory courtesies, although
in the large cities, when a family returns after a
considerable absence, it is not unusual to send
cards to their friends as an announcement of
their arrival, and to make known their address.
New-year's calls are very much like other vis-
its, except that they are made exclusively by
the male sex, a wider range of time is allowed
for them, say from ten o'clock in the morning
to nine o'clock in the evening, and a greater
display of toilette on the part of tlie ladies who
ETIQUETTE OF LEAVE-TAKING. 241
receive is expected. The gentlemen present
themselves ordinarily, as on other visits, in the
fashionable costume of the morning and prom-
enade, and not in the dress-coat and other parts
of the dinner and ball array. The stay is com-
monly very short, and seldom continues after the
arrival of a fresh-comer. A great latitude is al-
lowed to the use of cards, and the introduction
by a visitor of his friends and acquaintances.
The refreshments may be more or less abundant
and varied, according to the hospitable disposi-
tion and taste of the hostess. With the increase
of the great cities, and the 'consequent enlarge-
ment of our social circles, there is a growing dis-
position on the part of fashionable dames to re-
fuse themselves on New-year's Day to all but
relatives and intimates of their families.
The politest receivers of a visit, if of the fe-
male sex, are not expected to do more than bow
the head, say a gracious word or two of fare-
well, and ring the bell for the servant to open
the street-door on the departure of a male guest.
Women, however, are always treated with a
more condescending courtesy by the Avell-bred
even of their own sex, who will rise and accom-
pany them at least as far as the drawing-room
door, while a gallant man who has been honored
by a visit from a lady will escort her to the last
Q
242 FAKEWELL CARDS.
exit from his house, and even to the steps of the
carriage, if there should be one awaiting her.
Discreet visitors, ever mindful of the suggestive
line —
"Welcome the coming, and haste the departing guest,"
will linger as little as possible in transitu from
door to door.
We need not make use of the conventional lie,
even if justified by the moral philosopher Paley,
which asserts that we are " ;20^," though we are
" at home," when it is convenient, for any reason
whatsoever, to refuse a visitor. The most fas-
tidious sensibility should not be offended at the
simple and honest word " Engaged," civilly soft-
ened by the tact of a judicious servant.
It is the general custom for those who profess
to comply with the exactions of fashion to pay
a farewell visit to* their acquaintances when
about to leave a residence forever or a consider-
able time. Cards, however, are ordinarily sub-
stituted for a personal interview, and upon these
are written P. P. C. {Pour prendre conge)^ " To
take leave."
AMEEICxiN LOYE OF TITLES. 243
CHAPTER XIX.
American Titles. — Proper Forms of Address. — The Use of
the "Sir" and "Madam." — Professional Titles. — How to
address Letters. — Esq. — Female Titles. — Nicknames. —
Introductions. — Letters of Introduction. — Presentations
to Court. — Visits to the President.
Theee is an evident tendency with us demo-
cratic Americans to supply our want of author-
ized social distinctions with titular appellatives,
which have no warrant beyond the impudent as-
sumption of those who take, or the flattering
courtesy of those who give them. The titles
which distinguish rank in the army and navy,
and are of obvious use, are the only ones recog-
nized by American law. The " Excellencies" and
" Honorables," so profusely distributed among
the numerous successful aspirants for popular fa-
vor, are, whether given to the august chief mag-
istrate of the republic, or to the illiterate alder-
man's assistant of the lowest municipality, equal-
ly without sanction.
These unauthorized titles are used with the
profusion with which they are bestowed. While,
in most of those countries where social distinc-
244 SIRS AND MADAMS.
tions are recognized by law, it is considered
good breeding to avoid in conversation the fre-
quent repetition of the titles which mar^ them,
in the United States the various denominations
of fanciful rank are heard in every phrase.
The ordinary " Sir" and " Madam," to one ot
which we all consider ourselves more or less en-
titled, are uttered with a frequency and an em-
phasis which, though evidently intended to be
courteous, would be regarded in England as im-
polite. We seem to have borrowed our man-
ners in this respect from the French, who lose
no opportunity of announcing the " Monsieur,"
" Madame," and " Mademoiselle." Our English
relatives avoid the repetition of the " Sir," "Mad-
am," and " Miss," except when they desire to
express a certain degree of coldness or severity,
and a sense of superiority or inferiority. Serv-
ants, they say, must always remember their " My
lords" and " My ladies," their " Sirs" and " Mad-
ams," and their " Masters" and " Misses," and
gentlemen as carefully forget them.
The professional title of" Doctor" of Medicine
is never omitted, for the obvious reason of the
advantage to him to whom it belongs, and oth-
ers, of having it as widely known as possible.
The " Doctors" of Divinity and Civil Laws, also,
though the purpose may not bo so easy to ex-
TITULAR ADDEESSES. 245
plain, are generally spoken of and to by their
titles, which, however, should not be very fre-
quently repeated in a conversation addressed to
themselves. " Judge" has been greatly vulgar-
ized by its indiscriminate use and application in
America, though never heard in England, and
any man of taste entitled to it would consider
himself doubtless more honored by a breach of
ceremony in this respect than by its observance.
While in the performance of his functions, and
during his tenure of office, it may be useful and
appropriate that the judge should be called
"judge," but when off the bench 'permanently
there can be no motive for retaining a title which
is apt to be bandied about with the contempt-
uous familiarity of a nickname. " Governor,"
" Mayor," " Chancellor," and other civil denom-
inations, should likewise be restricted in use to
the duration of office.
Though it may not be good breeding to repeat
too frequently in conversation with people the
titles which may distinguish them, it is deemed
courteous to give them all they can claim on the
back of letters addressed to them. The Presi-
dent of the United States, the governors of the
various states, and the ministers to foreign coun-
tries of different grades, have generally the pre-
fix of " His Excellency" to their names. For ex-
246 COLLEGIATE TITJ.ES.
ample, it is usual to write " His Excellency Gen-
eral U. S. Grant, President of the United States,"
or simply " His Excellency the President of the
United States." "The Honorable" is given to
the judges of the Supreme Court, the various
members of the cabinet, of the Senate, of the
House of Representatives, the chief officers of
the state governments, executive, legislative, and
judicial, the mayor, aldermen, and assistant al-
dermen of the most corrupt municipalities, to a
lower descent than which we may be spared the
necessity of tracing it. " The Right Reverend"
is inscribed on every letter to a bishop, of what-
ever denomination he may be, and " The Rever-
end" in all addresses to the clergy. " The" is an
essential part of these inscriptions of honor, and
should never be omitted.
The collegiate or University distinction of Doc-
tor is never properly written in full as an ad--
dress, but is thus inscribed : " John Smith, Esq.,
M.D.f' " The Rev. Jabez Poundtext, i>.i>.;"
" The Right Rev. Boniface Ignatius Episcopus,
S.T.D.;'" "Timothy Smart,Esq.,Zi.J:>." It is no
compliment to those who have gained the title
of Doctor to give it indiscriminately to every
horse - drencher and starved apothecary. The
titles of A.B. and A.M. are never added to the
superscription of an ordinary letter. " Parson" is
ESQUIRES. 247
a good English word, but it has been so vulgar-
ized and made a term of contempt that no cler-
gyman is disposed to answer to it. It can only
be respectfully used nowadays thus associated :
" Parson of the Parish."
Every male person in this country feels him-
self entitled to have the " Esq."* at the end of
his name, and any one who pretends to exercise
his discretion in the use of it must do so at his
own peril. Your Irish Bridget of the kitchen
never fails to confer upon her dear Patrick .of
the stable-yard the " Esq.," and, with a superflu-
* The following are considered, in England, to have a le-
gal right to the title of Esquire :
* ' The sons of Peers, whether known in common conversa-
tion as Lords or Honorables.
"The eldest sons of Peer's sons, and their eldest sons in
perpetual succession.
"All the sons of Baronets.
"The Esquires of the Knights of the Bath.
"Lords of manors, chiefs of clans, and other tenants of the
Crown in capite, are Esquires by prescription.
" Esquires created to that rank by patent, and their eldest
sons in perpetual succession.
"Esquires by office, such as Justices of the Peace while on
the roll ; Mayors of towns during mayoralty, and Sheriffs
of counties (who retain the title for life).
" Members of the House of Commons.
"Barristers at Law.
* ' Bachelors of Divinity, Law, and Physic.
"All who, in commissions signed by the sovereign, are ever
styled Esquire, retain that designation for life."
248 FEMALE DIGmXABIES.
ous generosity of honor, gives him, in addition,
the prefix of "Mr.," and will thus write down
his name, if she can write at all, "Jir. Patrick
O'Shaughnessy, Esq^
There are some people who are so generous of
rank that they give it not only to the husband,
who may be doubtfully entitled to it, but to the
wife, who certainly is not. Thus we may oc-
casionally see the inscription "Mrs. Doctor,"
"Mrs. Right Rev.," " Mrs. Rev.," "Mrs. Honora-
ble," etc. These are, of course, inadmissible in
polite society, though they find some warrant in
German usage, which divides the smallest honor
of the man with the woman ; and thus the wife
of Herr Kenchenjunge Grosenfat, chief scullion
of the first cook of the grand chamberlain of the
first minister to the Grand Duke of Pumpernickel,
becomes " Mrs. Kenchenjunge Grosenfat, chief
scullion, etc." Those women who in these later
days have made good their right to be useful in
the world, and fairly won their diplomas of the-
ology and medicine, can justly claim to be distin-
guished by the titles which belong to them. We
must of course, therefore, write "Mrs. Dr. Black-
well," or " The Rev. Miss Stone."
It is not uncommon in this country, in address-
ing a married woman, to give her her Christian
name, thus : " Mrs. Mary Smith." This is not
LETTEE-WEITING. 249
the practice of the English, who always prefix
the husband's Christian name, thus : " Mrs. John
Smith." Where the married woman is married
to the eldest male member of the family, or
is the only one of the name, she receives mere-
ly the title of "Mrs. Smith," while each of the
others is distinguished by her husband's name :
"Mrs. Feter Smith," "Mrs. Jonas Smith," etc.
Whenever the eldest dies, the wife of the eldest
son or brother, or whoever may be next in the
order of succession, succeeds to the honor of
namelessness. The Christian name must be given
to all but the eldest of the unmarried daughters.
She is " Miss Brown," while the others are " Miss
Jane Brown," " Miss Susan Brown," etc. When
all are addressed or spoken of together, we say
" The Misses Brown," and not ^^Miss Browns."
In very formal letters it is usual to write in
the third person, and then the various titles,
"His Excellency," "Mr.,'^ "Mrs.," and "Miss,"
are used. In more familiar epistles it is proper
to write " Your Excellency," " Right Rev. Sir,"
"Reverend Sir," or ''Reverend and dear Sir,"
" My dear Madam," " My dear Sir," and " My
dear Miss Smith," but never " My dear Miss"
only. The " my dears" may be omitted where
the intimacy does not seem to justify them, and,
as a general rule, young unmarried women should
250 NICKNAMES.
be addressed in the third person. In the address
at the beginning of a letter, and in the courteous
expression at the end, it is better to adopt the
conventional phrase of the day. It is, for exam-
ple, safe to keep to the words " Respectfully
yours," "Your obedient servant," " Yours truly,"
etc., and make no attempts to rival the humorous
felicities of Charles Lamb's epistolary endings.
All such abbreviations in speaking of persons
as " Doc," a " Gent," an " M. C," a " Reverend,"
a "Reb.," "Mr. A.," "Mrs. B.," "Mr. G. Smith,"
and " Mrs. G. Smith," and nicknames like " Prex,"
" Dominie," " Prof," and others, are inelegant, to
say the least, and the usage of which people fas-
tidious of manners^and in language are careful to
avoid. " Governor," " the Old Man," or " Old
Gentleman," ^^ Paterfamilias^'' " the Old Woman,"
or " Old Lady," applied to one's father and moth-
er, are not only vulgar, but irreverent. Young
people should carefully eschew them, and take
care to give their proper titles not only to their
parents, but to all other persons who are their
superiors and elders. They must never speak
of these as " Smith," " Brown," or " Jones," but
give them the conventional prefixes of " Mr./'
"Mrs.," and "Miss."
The English have always been great sticklers
for formal introductions, and the story is told of
FELLOW-TEAVELERS. 251
one who, eying with his glass a drowning fellow-
mortal, refused to extend to him. a saving hand
because he had never been introduced.
The Americans have followed to some, though
not to this absurd extent, the example of their
transatlantic relatives. We are by no means so
reserved as they. Democratic friction has nec-
essarily broken up and rubbed off a good deal
of the original crustiness of our nature. Casual
intercourse, between strangers in America is
much freer than in England. The American,
perhaps, is as wanting as the JEnglishman is
abounding in reserve. The proper medium is
between familiarity and resistance. In travel-
ing, English constraint is often fatal to the gen-
eral ease and cheerfulness, while American free-
dom is not seldom subversive of personal com-
fort. In the close proximity of a railway car-
riage, two strangers can make themselves mu-
tually agreeable without any sacrifice of personal
dignity, and it is certainly their duty to do so.
The concessions on such an occasion are, of course,
to be regarded as temporary. They are drafts at
sight on each other's courtesy, to be paid at date,
and received as a final settlement which bars all
ulterior claims.
The Americans generally are too indiscrimi-
nate in their introductions. They seldom allow
252 INTEODUCTION.
two strangers to be together a moment without
introducing them to each other. No presenta-
tions should be made without a regard to the
mutual fitness and probable acceptability of the
acquaintanceship about to be formed. No two
should be introduced, however closely accident
may have thrown them together, if they would
be obviously incongruous as intimate associates.
At a dinner or other party, all the guests are
temporarily to regard themselves as acquaint-
ances, and they require no farther introduction
than the invitations they have received in com-
mon as the guests of the same host or hostess.
Special presentations are quite unnecessary, and,
when made, will indicate the desirableness of a
permanent friendship.
In introductions, the introduced is presented
to those who are entitled to precedence from
sex, age, or rank. A gentleman, whoever he may
be, is thus always taken to the lady, the citizen
to the mayor, the mayor to the governor, and
the governor to the president. In all cases but
purely official or formal presentations, it is pru-
dent, as well as polite, to secure the willingness
of those whom you are about to commend to
each other's intimacy.
Letters of introduction may be useful in a
strange country as guarantees of social credit
LETTERS OF INTRODUCTION. 253
at home in the case of an emergency, when, for
example, by some mishap or other, the more valid
banker's one has failed. They have, however,
lost much of their former power as a means of
getting into foreign society. There is now so
much traveling, and consequent abundance of
these missives, that they have greatly diminish-
ed in specific value. If a stranger now gets in
exchange for one of them a polite bow of the
head and a vague ofier of indefinite service, he
must need be satisfied.
The ordinary letter of introduction is expressed
in a few conventional phrases, as, for example :
"I have the pleasure of presenting to your acquaintance
Mr. , whom I commend to your kind attentions."
It should be inclosed in an open envelope, on
which, besides the address, it is customary to
write, in the left and lower corner, the word
"Introducing," followed by the name and title
in full, clearly inscribed, of the bearer. When
the letter is to be delivered, it should be sent to
the person for whom it is intended, with a card
on which are the name and address of the person
introduced. The response should be in the form
of a call and an invitation to dinner, but this
latter part of the civility is not always complied
with.
A good many people think that they are
254 ROYAL AND REPUBLICAN PRESENTATIONS.
obliged to give a letter of introduction to e very-
presentable person who may demand it, and this
has led to the depreciation of this kind of social
currency. It is perfectly conformable with the
laws of courtesy to refuse such a favor merely
upon the ground of unwillingness to take the
liberty of presenting any one to the person to
whom the introduction is asked.
All presentations to foreign courts are made
through the national representatives, and the in-
formation in regard to the various formalities re-
quired is obtained from them. The President's
" levees" at Washington are open to the whole
world, and are conducted with no more ceremo-
ny than an ordinary reception by any citizen's
wife. The doors of the White House may be
said to be never closed, and every one who
pleases may call upon its occupant as upon that
of any other dwelling. He must, however, not
always expect a personal interview. This, to be
secured, must be sought in the company of some
dignitary or intimate of the President, who will
thus be able to judge of the claims to attention
of a visitor.
BERTHS OF RESPECTABILITY. 255
CHAPTER XX.
Births and Christenings. — Giving of Names. — Presents. —
Visits. — Caudle Parties. — Etiquette and Ceremony of
Marriages. — At Church. — In the House.— Death. — Fu-
neral Ceremonies. — Finis.
It is Sir Thomas Browne, we believe, who, like
Captain Shandy, deplores, and Voltaire, we know,
who sneers at the fact that so noble a being as
man has not a more glorious entrance into the
world. Those who may be disposed to grow
sad with the one, and smile scornfully with the
other at the informal manner in which Nature
presents us all to society, have no reason to ques-
tion the ceremoniousness of the reception of those
whom Fashion takes with its dainty hands, and
acknowledges as its own.
No sooner has the doctor or nurse rejoiced the
heart of the opulent Smith or Jones with the
announcement that the chances of the extinction
of the race of Smith or Jones are diminished by
the birth of the " finest baby' ever born," than
haste is made to give the widest diffusion to the
important fact. In England a birth of " respecta-
bility" is at once published in the London Times,
256
and the news thus conveyed to the four quarters
of the globe. In the United States, from an af-
fected delicacy of reserve, we believe it is not
usual to announce in a newspaper our periodical
domestic issues. It, however, is the most con-
venient medium for spreading the intelligence
of a fact which it is desirable to convey to all
friends and acquaintances.
Soon after the news of a birth, however it may
arrive, is received, female friends send their cards,
and ask in regard to the health of the mother,
who, when she is well enough, returns them
" with thanks for kind inquiries." Personal vis-
its are then expected, and these must be paid
with the utmost punctiliousness. Male friends
are not expected to call on such occasions, at
any rate upon the mother. They may, however,
visit the father, and bestow their congratulations
upon him, as well as make the politest inquiries
in regard to his wife and offspring.
The first great social event in which the new-
comer is deeply interested, though not person-
ally consulted, is the bestowal of the name by
which he is thenceforward and forever to be rec-
ognized in the world.
Parents are apt to think that they have the
right to call their children what they please.
We would remind them, however, that, apart
NAME-GIVING. 257
from the claims of good taste, which should nev-
er be disregarded, every mother's son and daugh-
ter have a vested interest in the names bestowed
upon them. Parents have no right, socially, to
disqualify their offspring by affixing to them ei-
ther inappropriate or unseemly appellations.
There was more truth than oddity in Captain
Shandy's notion that a great deal more depend-
ed ujDon the choice and imposition of Christian
names than what superficial minds are capable
of conceiving. " How many Caesars and Pom-
peys, he would say, by mere inspiration of the
names, have been rendered worthy of them !
And how many, he would add, are there who
might have done exceeding well in the world
had not their characters and spirits been totally
depressed and Nicodemus'd into nothing !" We
commend this Shandean notion to every parent,
who we hope, however, may escape the Shandean
fate 'of having a Tristram in the family.
In well-regulated families the simj)le rule is
followed of giving the children the names of
their grandparents, parents, and other relatives.
In Scotland the first son is named after the fa-
ther's father, the first daughter after the moth-
er's moth*er, the second son after the father, and
the second daughter after the mother. This is a
good general rule to follow, which, however, ad-
R
258 PREVAILING NAMES.
mits of exceptions. No one, for example, should
perpetuate an ancestral name which has graced
the Newgate Calendar, been affixed to the vil-
lage stocks, or swung from the gallows-tree. If
the appellation, moreover, should be positively
ugly, it ought to have the go-by. There is noth-
ing gained by reviving the Hezekiah Hogsflesh,
for example, of some near relative, however rep-
utable and dearly beloved. Parents can do no
better than strengthen the family bond of union
by a repetition to the farthest generation of the
family names from which the ugly and disrepu-
table have been weeded out.
The prevailing Christian names in an English
or American family are an indication more or
less of its origin. The predominance of Franks,
Charleses, Hughs, Isabels, Louisas, Catharines,
etc., is a proof of Cavalier, as that of Hezekiahs,
Reubens, Jonahs, Jonathans, Rebeccas, Marthas,
etc., is of Puritanic descent.
Names, however, are now frequently given
which indicate nothing more than the peculiar
sentiments, tastes, caprices, and fancies of those
who bestow them. The pious are apt to turn
to the Bible for a choice, and affix to their chil-
dren, with a fond and almost superstitious hope
of sanctification, the names of some patriarch,
saint, or apostle. It is curious how little dis-
SCEIPTUEAL A^D PATKIOTIC NAMES. 259
crimination is sometimes used in selecting appel-
lations from the Holy Book, which is supposed
with simple reverence to render sacred every
thing it may contain. We have all heard of the
mother who insisted upon calling her first-born
Beelzebub, for it was, she declared, a Scriptural
name, which none could gainsay. We know two
promising scions of a serious family who bear,
respectively the names of Abiathar Benajah and
Jonah Jonathan. *
The sentimental are apt to be guided by the
last novel they have read, and to borrow the
name of a favorite hero or heroine for the beloved
son or daughter of thei^* house. "Our second
child, a girl," says the Vicar of Wakefield, " I in-
tended to call after her aunt Grissel ; but my
wife, who during her pregnancy had been read-
ing romances, insisted upon her being called Oli-
via." A respectable citizen of New York bears
the name of" Orondates," borrowed by his moth-
er from the hero of s'ome forgotten novel.
The patriotic choose national names, and thus
the Patricks abound in Ireland, the Georges in
England, the Andrews in Scotland, the Hermanns
in Germany, the Louises in France, and the Wash-
ingtons and Franklins in the United States. The
scion whom we know, of an intensely loyal sire,
bears the Christian name of George Ilex, The
260 ULYSSES HIE AM GKANT.
following is the history given by General Grant's
father of his son's name :
" It occurred in this way : he was our first-
born, and his grandfather, grandmother, and sev-
eral others felt an interest in naming him. We
finally agreed to write all the names we chose
(one each, there being seven of us), place them
.in a hat, and draw, abiding by the result. Ulys-
ses was drawnJirsL But his grandfather's choice
Vas Hiram. So, to please my father, we permit-
ted it to be Ulysses Hiram; but all know how
they got his name Ulysses S. on the West Point
books, I tried to get it corrected, but Ulysses
said he didn't like the name Hiram any way, and
so we let it stand. We have never had any rea-
son to object to it since."
In selecting the names of distinguished peo-
ple for their children, it would be wise for par-
ents to await the full verdict of posterity before
committing themselves to any one's reputation
for greatness. It is not safe to assume the ex-
cellence of any contemporary name, and affix to
a child a supposed honorable appellation which
time may turn into a stigma of disgrace. During
the honorable period of Benedict Arnold's and
Aaron Burr's careers, children w^ere not seldom
called after them, who grew up to a consciousness
of the shame of bearing the names of traitors.
DISTINGUISHED NAMES. 261
It is better, perhaps, to avoid altogether the
names of mark, for the children who bear them
will necessarily suffer by the continually suggest-
ed comparison with those who first bore them.
If their careers should be humble, their humili-
ty will be increased ; if aspiring, their utmost
reach will be deemed a shortcoming. Ridicule
or disappointment must be the inevitable result.
'No William Shakspeare Smith, Francis Bacon
Jones, Isaac Newton Brown, Julius Csesar Jen-
kins, or Marcus Tullius Cicero Higgins can ever,
by any possibility, however gifted by nature and
improved by art, reach a degree of poetry, phi-
losophy, science, military heroism, or eloquence
to justify his name, and, if but a simple mortal
without extraordinary endowment, survive the
ridicule of bearing it. An eminent author has
committed this error in regard to his children,
among whom there are a Sydney Smith, a Fran-
cis Jeffrey, and an Alfred Tennyson. He, how-
ever, thought, no doubt, that the splendor of liis
own name was such as to condemn already to
comparative obscurity his offspring, and that
they thus might not be harmed by any addi-
tional contrast of brilliancy reflected from his dis-
tinguished contemporaries..
If parents are, for want of family names, in
search of others for their children, we would
262 CEEEMONY OF CITEISTENING.
commend them to the familiar and unobjection-
able, or " neutral" ones, as Sterne terms them, of
William, John, Francis, Charles, Henry, Mary,
Margaret, Louisa, Sarah, Helen, etc. The early
English names are getting greatly into vogue;
and you may hear in almost every nursery the
pretty appellations of Arthur, Edith, Ethel, Ed-
gar, Alfred, and Edwin. These are mellifluous,
and come from ancestors common to Americans
and English, by both of whom their memory de-
serves to be perpetuated.
The christening is most frequently, though not
always, associated with the baptism, which is reg-
ulated according to the ecclesiastical formulary
of the peculiar sect to which the parents of the
child may belong. In the Episcopal Church
there are always three sponsors or godparents
chosen from among the relatives or most inti-
mate friends, and one of them should be he or
she after w^hom the child is named. For a boy
there must be two godfathers and one god-
mother, and for a girl two godmothers and one
godfather. These, however they may neglect
the religious responsibilities they assume, must
never shirk the obligations which society im-
poses upon them of making a present to their
god-children. This is ordinarily a silver mug, a
knife, fork, and spoon of precious metal, some
CAUDLE PARTIES. 263
costly piece of laced costume fit for babyhood,
or, if the piety of the giver should justify it, a
handsomely bound Bible.
The convivial part of a christening consists of
a luncheon or dejeilner d la fourchette^ to which
the relatives and most intimate friends are in-
vited, and generally without the formality of a
card or a note. On such an occasion it is usual
for the chief male sponsor to propose the health
of the infantile member of fashionable society in
whose honor the meeting has been convened.
Some mothers, when ready, after the four or
five weeks of seclusion exacted by a fastidious
fashion, to face their female friends, find it con-
venient to assemble them together at a " caudle"
party, when it is not essential that the refresh-
ment should be confined to the ancestral spoon-
meat from which the name is derived. The table
is spread on such occasions with the usual con-
stituents of the fashionable luncheon or break-
fast, with the addition of cocoa, perhaps, or some
other simple beverage, to give an innocent, con-
valescent look to the banquet.
Few, however Quakerish they may be in their
opposition to ceremonials generally, resist, on
marrying, the ordinary formalities of the wed-
ding. We shall not pretend- to give, as some
have assumed to do, formularies for making love
264: COURTSHIP AND ENGAGEMENT.
or plighting troth, but we doubt not that many
a person has been left to pine away in single
misery for want of knowledge of the proper pro-
cedure, simple as it may be.
It is customary in every country but our own,
we believe, to ask the permission of the parents
of the beloved on5 before formally proposing to
her. The proposition being made and accepted,
a ring, called " the engagement ring," usually
containing a single diamond, of the highest val-
ue to which the generosity and means of the
giver are capable of attaining, is presented by
the successful suitor to his betrothed, who wears
it ostentatiously on the ring-finger of her right
hand.
The ceremony of marriage may take place as
soon or long after the engagement as may be
convenient to the parties most concerned. Un-
til then, in our country, the intimacy of the be-
trothed is left unchecked by parental interfer-
ence. The two are allowed to be and to appear
every where together, and ordinarily show them-
selves in the public streets and promenades
linked arm in arm.
When the day for the marriage is fixed, the
future bride pays, in company with her mother,
her last maiden visits. About ten days or a
fortnight before the day of the ceremony, cards
PRESENTS. 265
are issued. These consist of the separate cards
of the bride and bridegroom, and two cards of
invitation, on one of which there are merely the
name and situation of the church, with the date
and time of the ceremony, and on the other the
names of the parents, thus associated : " Mr. and
Mrs. John Smith," and an invitation to the house
conveyed by the words " at home," with the ad-
dress of the paternal mansion, and the date and
hour of the reception. All these cards are put
into one envelope, and sent to the relatives and
intimate friends of both parties. The card con-
veying the invitation to the house is left out of
those intended for mere formal acquaintances.
Presents are expected from the connections
and friends, and the quantity and value of these
have become of late so excessive, that the obli-
gation to give them is felt by all but the rich-
est and most prodigal to be very burdensome.
They are often of a marvelous inappropriate-
ness. We have known a silver tureen sent to a
young couple whose prospects in life hardly in-
dicated the probability of even a regular supply
of the simple pot of soup which good Henry the
Fourth of France wished to be the least daily
portion of every one of his subjects. The pres-
ents, with the cards of the givers attached, are
sent some days before the reception, that they
26G MARRIAGE CEREMONY.
may be displayed on the occasion. This public
show of the donatives of the prodigal seems to
liave been ingeniously designed for the purpose
of stimulating the lagging generosity of others,
and thus keeping up a practice very grateful, no
doubt, to each recipient, but exceedingly j^ainful
to most givers.
The ceremony of marriage is ordinarily gov-
erned by the ecclesiastical formularies of the sect
to which the bride may belong, who chooses the
clergyman for its performance. The bride has
generally two bridesmaids, and the bridegroom
the same number of groomsmen, but they may
be both increased. The marriage is ordinarily
performed at 12 o'clock in the day, at the church,
Avhich is first entered by the bride resting on the
arm of her father, uncle, or whomsoever is to
"give her away." Next comes the bridegroom,
with the mother or nearest matronly female rel-
ative. Then follow the groomsmen and brides-
maids, arm in arm. The immediate relatives
complete the procession to the altar, where the
bride and bridegroom take their places in ad-
vance, with the parents a little behind, and the
rest gathered in a group about them. The
bridegroom takes care to provide the wedding
ring, and have it in readiness at the proper mo-
ment when called upon to put it on. He then
KISSING THE BEIDE. 267
places it on the third finger from, but not count-
ins: the thumb of the left hand. When the cer-
emony is over, the question sometimes arises
whether the bride is to be kissed by the bride-
groom. We should leave its decision to the in-
stinct of affection were we not solemnly warned
by a portentous authority on deportment that
"the practice is decidedly to be avoided; it is
never followed by people in the best society.
A bridegroom with any tact will take care that
this is known to his wife, since any disappoint-
ment of exj^ectations would be a breach of good
breeding. The bride is congratulated by all her
friends in the church, and elderly relatives will
kiss her in congratulation." This is, of course,
now settled beyond all peradventure of doubt
by the fact that, accoiding to the same author-
ity, "The queen was kissed by the Duke of Sus-
sex, but not by Prince Albert."
The married pair then return to the bride's
house together, taking precedence of all, and, on
arrival, assume a standing position at one end of
the reception-room and await the coming of tha«
invited guests, who, as they enter, are conducted
by the groomsmen to oifer their congratulations.
The conventional breakfast or lunch closes the
ceremony.
The dress of the bridegroom is regulated by
268 FORMALITIES OF DEATH.
that chosen by the bride ; if she wears a white
veil, he is expected to appear in black trowsers,
dress coat, which may be either black or blue,
white waistcoat, and white cravat ; or, if a naval
or military person, in full uniform. If the bride
should prefer to wear a bonnet, the bridegroom
should put on a frock-co^it of black, brown, or
other tasteful color, and light-colored waistcoat
and trowsers. It is customary for the married
pair to leave, on the day of marriage, for a tour,
and remain absent for a week, ten days, or even
more. On their return they expect visits from
all those to whom bridal cards have been sent,
and the usual succession of dinners and evening
j)arties, after which they lose their distinctive
character, and become incorporated into the vast
mass of ordinary people. •
The human body, even in the unconsciousness
of death, continues to be the object of a punc-
tilious observance of ceremony. The mourning
relatives are usually spared many of the painful
details of funereal civility by the convenient offi-
<;iousness of the undertaker, upon whom devolve
. the chief arrangements of the burial and its at-
tendant formalities.
We have shown the good taste in America of
abolishing the hired mutes, the emblazonment of
the emblematic horrors of death, the skull and
LUXURY OF WOE. 269
cross-bones on the panels of the hearse, and all
that " luxury of woe" so remarkable in the En-
glish funeral. We have borrowed from the
French and the Germans the tasteful practice of
the use of flowers. This, however, with our usu-
al tendency to excess, has become immoderate,
and there is often an ostentatious exhibition of a
profusion of crowns, crosses, hearts, and stars of
the rarest and most costly products of the hot-
house, which seem rather an indication of the
exultation of wealth than of a regret for the
dead or sympathy with the living.
The notice of a death and invitation to the
funeral are conveyed through the newspapers
to the friends and acquaintances generally, but
notes are sent to those who are to serve as pall-
bearers. In this country ladies occasionally,
but in England never, follow the procession,
and the female members of the family not sel-
dom make their appearance in company with the
male chief mourners.
It is now beginning to be the custom in
America, as in England, to send to relatives and
friends cards edged deeply with black, upon
which is printed or engraved the name of the de-
ceased, with his age, place, and date of his death.
These are acknowledged by letters of condolence
sent immediately, and visits of ceremony after a
270 MOUENING.
proper time. With a singular preference of de-
votion to fashion, ladies, whatever may be the
control of their emotions and disposition to per-
form their religious duties, abstain from going
to church before, and for several days after the
funeral. The card, and the letter-paper and en-
velope edged with black, are used during the
whole period of mourning.*
* Mourning should be worn, as we are told by a professed
authority,
"For a husband or wife, from one to two years, though
some widows retain their mourning for life.
* ' For a parent or grandparent, from six months to a year.
*' For children above ten years of age, from six months to
a year ; for those below that age, from three to six months ;
and for an infant, six or seven weeks.
"For brothers and sisters, six to eight months.
* ' For uncles and aunts, three to six months.
** For cousins, or uncles or aunts related by marriage, from
six weeks to three months.
"For more distant relatives or friends, from three weeks
to as many months, according to the degree of intimacy."
The servants are ordinarily put in mourning by those who
can afford it on the death of an important member of the
family. The nurse only in the case of the death of young
children.
INDEX.
Acceptances of Invitations, page 225.
African Taste, 83.
Age—" Growing Old gracefully," 111.
Antinous a Rustic compared with Talleyrand, 73.
Arsenic, Folly and Danger of using (Note), 30.
Attar of Roses, 114.
Awliwardness, Lord Chesterfield's Opinion of, 75.
Bacon a Man of Society, 111.
Balls— Invitations and Refusals, 224, 225 ; entering the Room, and
Conduct there, 226 ; a polite Hostess, 226 ; Duty of Gentlemen,
227 ; Social Offenders, 228 ; Evil of late Hours, 220 ; Visits after, 229.
Bankruptcy caused by Love of Dress, 168.
Bash fulness in Children, 74.
Bathing, the Necessity of, 27.
Beauty— the Duty of Woman and Man to be Beautiful if they can,
20 ; Beauty defined by Brantome, 20 ; how Women are apt to re-
gard it, 20; none without Health, 21 ; physical Causes of Beauty
of Form, 22 ; American Style, 25 ; what it may be attributed to, 26;
a Negro Painter's Idea of the Goddess of Beauty, 36.
Pelladonna dangerous to the Eyes, 44.
Bills of Fare, 214.
Births— Announcements in Newspapers, 255 ; VisBk to Parent, 256 ;
Children's Rights, 256 ; Name-giving, 257.
Blushing, a Sign of Modesty or a Nuisance, 109 ; Mauvaise honte, or
false IVIodesty, 110.
Boots and Shoes— the Modern Shape, how they spoil the Feet, 66 ;
the correct Shape, 68 ; iron Boots for deformity, 94.
Brantome's Definition of Beauty, 20.
Breakfast— of Queen Elizabeth and her Maids, 192 ; of an Earl and
• Countess, 192 ; least ceremonious of Meals, 195; English Break-
fasts, 195 ; Table Furniture, 196 ; serving Tea and Coffee, 197 ; Dr.
Johnson's Fingers in the Sugar-bowl, 197 ; cutting Bread, Queen
Victoria's Practice, 198 ; what Breakfasts should consist of, 199 ;
Breakfast Costume, 200 ; the Formal and Wedding Breakfasts,
Dress for, 204.
Bridgewater Treatise on the Hand, 60.
Brillat Savarin on Gourmaudis-m, 27 ; on Dinner Guests, 208.
Bunions and Corns, 70.
Burr, ugly, but popular with Ladies, 81.
Caps, Servants should wear, 163.
Cards— for Dinners, 208 ; for Balls, 224 ; Visiting, 239 ; Farewell, 242 ;
Marriage, 265 ; Mourning, 270.
Caudle Parties, 263.
272 INDEX.
Ceremony— Observances founded on Common Sense, 9.
Chair, how to sit in a, 103.
Cheerfulness— Beneflts of, 107 ; Dyspepsia produced by want of, 107 ;
an Eastern Apologue, 108 ; the Walcheren Expedition, 108 ; Dr.
Sydenham's Advice, 109 ; Lord Bacon's Opinion of, 109.
Chemistry of Dress, 176.
Chesterfield, Lord, on the Graces,15 ; on Awkwardness, 75 ; his Short-
ness of Stature, 81 ; he never Laughed, 105 ; his Opinion of One who
did, 105 ; Advice to his Son about Dress, 158.
Chignons, how the hair is procured, 33.
Children— too much Interference with, 17 ; proper Degree of Free-
dom, 78; constrained Postures, 79; wholesome Neglect, 80; ugly
Gait, how caused, 88 ; Dancing recommended by Locke, 89 ; the
Dress of, 177; hardening, 178 ; Dangers of Exposure, 179; cover-
ing a Child's Body with Gold Leaf, 180 ; Difference between in-
door and outdoor Clothing, ISO ; Security in warm Clothing, 181 ;
their Meals, 202 ; their Eights, 256 ; Name-giving, 257.
Chinese Women, the Feet of, 67.
Chocolate Girl in Dresden Gallery, the, 162.
Christening— Ceremony o^ 262 ; Caudle Parties, 263.
Church, Finery in, 164.
Cloaks and Overcoats, 180.
Clothing, see Dress.
Combs, pocket-, indelicate, 112.
Complexions— the American compared with English, 25 ; Pallidness
attributable to Diet, 26; Health alone gives the rosy Tint to a
Blonde, or the ripe Color to a Brunette, 30 ; how to obtain a good
Complexion, 30 ; Folly of using Arsenic, 30.
Corns and Bunions, 70.
Courtship, 264.
Cowper's Modesty, 111.
Crookedness, a fiemedy for, 95.
Dancing— recommended by Locke, 89; unhealthy Dancing, 90 ; fiish-
ionabie Dancing, 91.
Dandruff— the Cause, 34 ; the Remedy, 35.
Death— Formalities of, 268 ; Notices of, 269.
Dejeuner a la fourchette, see Luncheon.
Democracy, affected Vulgarities of, 14.
Demonstrations of Feelmg in Public, 97 ; common American Prac-
tices, 101.
Dinner— should begin with Soup ; Sweets should be eaten at the
close, 185 ; Coeval with Man, 205 : Talleyrand's ideas on the im-
portance of, 205; the Dinners of Cambaceres, 205 ; choice and
number of Company, 206 ; an old Superstition, 207 ; invitations,
208 ; punctuality essential, 209 ; order of precedence, 210 ; an En-
glish custom, 210 ; separation of Husband and Wife, 211 ; advan-
tages of an early Dinner, 212 ; how to appreciate a Dinner, 213 ;
when it should be Served, 214 ; Diner d laRusse, 214 ; how it should
be served, 214 ; duties of the Host, 215 ; a French Dinner, 216 ;
Lord Dudley's idea of a good Dinner, 216 ; a good Republican Din-
ner, 217; rising from Table, 217, 220; Calls after an Entertain-
ment, 218 ; genteel Observances, 218 ; a Negro Waiter's perplexity,
218 ; Gloves at Dinner, 219 ; attention to the Ladies, 219 ; be not
obtrusive, 220 ; return to Drawing-room, 221 ; taking Leave, 222.
INDEX. 273
Doctor, the use of the Title, 244.
Domestic Privacy, cultivation of, 150.
Drawiug-room after Dinner, 221.
Press— Relation of, to Form, 31 ; the ancient Greek Woman, 31 ; the
modern Dame of Fashion, 31 ; effect of Civilization on, 155 ; diver-
gence between Masculine and Feminine taste, 156 : the Poet Gold-
smith's brilliant Suit^lST; the old Coat-collar, 157 ; Chesterfield's
advice to his Son, 15S ; decorum in Dress, 159 ; uniformity of Dress
in the United States, 160 ; Dress of vs'^orkinj^ People, 100 ; in the
Kitchen, 161 ; the Chocolate Girl of the Dresden Gallery, 162 ; Caps
for Servants, 163 ; Americans universally well Dressed, 163 ; Over-
dressing for Church, 164 ; simple Attire and Piety, 165 ; Paley's
Opinion on the distinctions of Dress, 166 ; Girls entirely Over-
dressed, 167: what Overdress leads to, 168; advantage of modest
Dress, 169 ; Male and Female Manikins, 170 : uniformity of Dress,
171 ;'*the Domestic Slattern, 171 ; Men attracted by propriety in
Dress, 172 ; Fielding's Wife, 172 ; economy of decorous Dress, 173 ;
Hygiene of Dress, 174 ; Philosophy of Dress, 175 ; Chemistry of
Dress — Dr. Franklin's Experiment, 176 ; loose versus tight Gar-
ments, 177 ; Summer and Winter Clothing, 177 ; Cloaks and Over-
coats, ISO ; black Coats and Hats, 181 ; M. Rouher and the Paris
Modiste's Servant, 182; for Wedding Breakfasts, 204 ; of Bride and
Groom, 267 ; Mourning, 270.
Drunkenness banished from Society, 231.
Du Barri, the nez retrousse of Madame, 37.
Ear, the— how it is deformed in Childhood, 45 ; the Ear in Grecian
Sculpture, 46 ; complicated and delicate Apparatus, 47 ; Ear-wax,
how to remove it, 48; danger of Ear-pulling, 48 ; not to be kept
in order in Public, 122; Ear-boring a barbarous practice, 122;
process of Ear-boring, 124; how a Child was tortured, 125; Ear-
tjoring does no good to the Eyes, 126.
Ear-trinkets a Relic of barbarism, 123 ; the Venus of Milo ivithout,
the Venus of Titian with, contrasted, 123 ; neither beauty nor fit-
ness in the practice, 126.
Ease of Americans, 96.
Eau de Colofjne, 114.
Economy of decorous Dress, 172.
Engagements, 264.
Expression and action, the power of, 73 ; ugly tricks of, 80.
Eyebrows, the, 41 ; their union esteemed a Beauty among the An-
cients, 42 ; Michael Angelo, and Tennyson's allusion to his Friend
Hallam, 42.
Eye-glasses, their abuse, 120.
Eyes, the — the glory of the Face, the beauty dependent upon health,
39 ; Short-sightedness, how it is sometimes caused, 40 ; the use of
Glasses, 40 ; Squinting, 40 ; how Squinting is sometimes caused,
41 ; Eyebrows and Lashes should not be interfered with, 41 ; im-
perfect Light and weeping bad for the Eyes, 43; Black Pigment,
44 ; les yeux cernes, 44 ; clouding the Eyes with Ink, 44 ; the use
of Belladonna causing the loss of Sight, 44 ; looks of shyness or
boldness equally unbecoming, 116 ; free glances unbecoming, 116 ;
the assured look of American Women, 117 ; the misuse of Eye-
glasses, 120.
s
274 INDEX.
Face, the, expression of under control, 104 ; Lord Chesterfield's com-
posure, 105.
Falsehood fashionable, 130 ; not to be conceded, 132 ; iustauce of a
fai^ionable Lie, 132.
Fashion, recklessness of, 1T4.
Fatness, cause of, 84 ; cure for, 85 ; Iodine found useful, 85 ; case of
Bantiug, 85; success of his plan, 86.
Feet, the— Rarity of well- formed Feet, 66 ; the ancient Sandal and
modern Boots, 00 ; the hideous Feet of Chinese Women, 67 ; high
Heels weaken and distort the Feet, 68 ; Madame de Pompadour
exposes her bare Foot, 69 ; Corns and Bunions, how caused, and
how the^ may be cured, 70 : ingrowth of the Toe-nail, 71 ; remedy
for ingrotvth — terrible operation, 71 ; excessive Perspiration, how
remedied, 72 ; Boots of Iron for deformity condemned, 94.
Fielding's Wife, 172.
Flexibility of Limb distinguishes Americans, 101.
jPbod—abundance of, by perverse use, an iujury, 183 ; too Carnivor-
ous in this Country, Dyspepsia, 184; proper variety of Food, 184;
experience of Good Livers, 184; danger of higgledy-piggledy Din-
ners, 185 ; why Dinner should begin with Soup and close with
Sweets, 185; Restaurants at the Luncheon hour, 186; the atten-
tion necessary to proper feeding, 187 ; time should be given to
eating, 188 ; both Brain and Stomach must be at ease, 188; the
apothegm of Sterne, 188 ; sociability an essential element, 189 :
protest against solitary feeding, 189 ; has Woman a Stomach ? 191 ;
noble Feeders, 192 ; the sly voracity of private Luncheons, 193.
Fox, the fatness of Charles James, 81.
Franklin a Man of Societv, 111 ; experiments on Colors, 176.
Fuss avoided by well-bred People, 98 ; fatal to comfort, 99 ; a fussy
Housekeeper, 100.
Genghis Khan's Wife, her Nose, 37.
Gibbon, his Nose, 37.
Gloves at Dinner, 219.
Gold-leaf, covering a Child's Body with, 180.
Goldsmith's '' suit of Tyrian bloom," 157.
Good Manners essential in this country, 12.
Governor, use of the Title, 245.
Gregariousness of the American, 148.
Hair, the— Female ingenuity exercised about, 32 ; how the Hair for
Chignons is obtained, 33 ; Dyeing a preposterous artifice, 33 ; pre-
mature Grayness, 34; a simple Lotion, 34; Dandruft', 34; Depila-
tories are dangerous, 35 ; remedy for Feminine Beards, 35 ; prac-
tice of the American Indians, 35; false Hair an ugly Sham, 112;
too much of the Barber, 112 ; the Hair of the Young, 112 ; Pocket-
combs and other filthy practices, 112.
Hand, the— The Bridgewater Treatise on, 60 ; its beauty and utility,
60; functions, 61 ; to be beautiful should be in proportion to the
rest of the Body, 62 ; Artist's horror of painting Hands, 52; how
to beautify the Hands, 63 ; the Half Moon or Lunula, 63 ; how to
prevent Ilang-nails, 63 ; Rousseau and a Finger-brush, 64 ; biting
the Nails fatal to their beauty, 64 ; snapping the Fingers, 64 ;
Warts, 64; how to cure them, 65; humid Hands often constitu-
tional—how to relieve the infirmity, 65 ; management of the
INDEX. 275
Hands in Company, 143 ; certain annoying practices, 144 ; Hand-
shaking, 145.
"Hands off, "101.
Hang-nails, 63.
Hats, the ugly stove-pipe, 181.
Hawthorne afflicted with mauvaise honte, 110.
Host and Hostess— Duties at Dinner, 215 ; at a Party or Ball, 226.
Hue, the Traveler's, description of the Feet of Chinese Women, 67.
Hygiene of Dress, 1T4; Children's Dress, 177; the Hardening Pro-
cess, 17S ; Effects of covering the Body of a Child with Gold Leaf,
180.
Infirmity, personal, never alluded to, 81.
Ingrowth of t0€-nail, 71.
Introductions— English Reserve, 250 ; Americans indiscriminate, 251 ;
the Form of, 252 ; Letters of, 253.
Intrusiveness, Democratic, 146 ; Loyal, 147.
Invitations— to Dinner, 208 ; to Balls, 224 ; Refusals and Acceptances,
225; to Marriages, 265.
Iron Boots condemned nowadays, 94.
Israelitish Noses, 37.
Judge, use of the Title, 245.
Kitchen, Dress in the, 161 ; Caps should be insisted upon, 163.
Knees, Awkwardness of stiff, 102.
Knife, why it should not be put in the Mouth, or used with Fish, 11.
Lafayette's polite Salutations, 146.
Lafontaine's Modesty, 111.
Laughter— Chesterfield's Opinion about, 105; Advantages of, 106;
"Laugh and grow Fat," 107.
Leave-taking, Etiquette of, 240.
Letters— addressing, 249 ; of Introduction, 253.
Locke on Good Breeding, 15.
Love of Dress, proper Extent of, 158 ; improper, 168.
Luncheon — Ladies' private Luncheons, 193 ; the Etymology of, 201 ;
the dejeuner d la fonrchette of the French, 201 ; when it should be
eaten, 201 ; thrifty Housekeepers, their Mistakes, 202 ; the formal
Lunch, 203 ; to appreciate a Dinner, 213 ; Christening-parties, 263.
Lunula, or half moon, 63.
Madam, Use and Abuse of the Word, 244.
Manikins, male and female, 170.
Manners— the Eyes in Conversation, 110 ; Familiarity of Looks, 116;
the Libertine's Glance, 117 ; free Manners of unmarried Women,
117; prevailing Characteristics of fashionable young Ladies, 118;
the Effect of fast Manners on Character, 119 ; Effect on social
Morals, 120 ; the Use of an Eyeglass, 120 ; Winking and Ogling,
121 ; a deserved Rebuke, 121 ; Somnolency in Company, 121 ; Som-
nolency of Washington Irving, 122 ; decorous Swallowing, 140 ;
ugly Noises with the Mouth, 140; Decency of Motion, 141 ; Atti-
tudinizing, 142 ; Hand-shaking, 145 ; Lafayette's polite Inquiries,
146 ; Democratic Intrusiveness, 146 ; Loyal Intrusiveness, 147 ;
Bows and Nods, 151 ; Goldsmith's " mutilated Courtesy," 153 ; at
276 INDEX.
Dinner, 219 ; in the Drawing-room, 221 ; on entering a Room, 220 ;
a polite Hostess, 226 ; escorting Ladies, 227; polite partners, 228;
social Offenders, 228 ; Visits after Balls, 22i) ; Treatment of Serv-
ants, 280 et seq. ; Etiqnette of Leave-taking, 241.
Marlborongh, graceful Bearing of the Duke of, 16.
Massasoit cured by Edward Win slow, 53.
Mauvaise honte, the Reverse of true Modesty, 109.
Mayor, Use of the Title, 245.
Mind and Body— Pleasure with Exercise, 92; proper Exercise, 93.
Mirabeau— his Nose, 37; popular with Ladies despite Iiis Ugliness,
81.
Morbific Phase of Fashion, 43.
Mourning, 2G9.
Mouth, the— hidden by Males, 49 ; what the African Women thought
of Mungo Park's Mouth, 49 ; Xantippe's Mouth, 50 ; Suckling's De-
scription of a Mouth, 50 ; the proper form, 50 ; evil Effects of Rouge
on the Lips, 51 ; Madame de Pompadour's Lips, 51 ; a Mouth-wash,
51 ; the Muscles of the Mouth, 52 ; the musculus superbus, or proud
Muscle, how sparingly it should be used, 52.
Nails, the— much of the Beauty of the Hand depends upon them, 03 ;
how they should be pared, 63 ; how to preserve the luiiula, or half
moon, 63; Hang-nails, 64; biting the Nails, 64; Ingrowth of the
Toe-nail, how caused and how cured, 71 ; Dean Swift and his Nails,
154; claw-like Nails very ugly, 154; Inside of Nails should never
be scraped, 154.
Names — Nicknames, 250 ; of Children, 25T ; prevailing Names, 259 ;
Scriptural and Patriotic, 259; how General Grant came by hi«
Name, 200 ; distinguished Names, 260, 261 ; neutral Names, 262.
Newton a Man of Society, 111.
New-Year's Calls, 240.
Nez retrotissSy or Pug Nose, 37.
Nicknames, 250.
Nose, the— essential to good looks, 35; the Grecian, S6; the Hotten-
tot Venus, 36; the Romans, 37; the Tartars, 37 ; the Wife of Gen-
ghis Khan, 37; the Noses of Mirabeau, Gibbon, and Wilkes, 37;
the Pug, S7 ; the 7iez retrousse of Madame du Barri, 37 ; the Nose
reveals the Temper, 38; scores Excesses, 38 ; is the Organ of Smell,
38 ; its Formation, 38 ; the Dog's Nose, 39 ; every Man has a Smell
peculiar to himself. 39 ; Instance of a Man without the Organ of
Smell, 39 ; a Lawyer who wrio:gled his Nose, 80 ; should not be
handled unnecessarily, 113 ; Efiect of taking Snuff, 113.
Odors, 114.
Otto or Attar of Roses, 114.
Overcoats and Cloaks, 180.
Overdressing of unmarried Girls, 167.
Paley on fiishionable Falsehood, 132 ; on Distinctions of Dress, 166.
Park, Mungo, and the African Women, 49.
Peel, Sir Robert, and the Letter //, 127.
Perfumes, use and misuse of, 114.
Perspiration of the Hand, 65 ; of the Feet, 72.
Philosophy of Dress, 174.
Plagite, Eastern Apologue about the, 108.
INDEX. 277
Pompadour, Madame de, her idea of Woman's chief duty, 19 ; how
she spoiled her Lips, 52 ; her beautiful Feet, G9.
P. P. C, 242.
Precedence at Dinner, 210.
Presentations, Koyal and Kepublican, 254.
Presents, Weddincr, 265.
President of the United States, his Designation, 245; Presentations
to, 254.
Primness by no means Graceful, 102.
Prudishness of Speech, 136.
Queen Elizabeth's Breakfast, 192.
Quietness of Well-bred People, 98.
Quixote, the Adventures of, recommended, 109.
R.S.V.P.,225.
Refusals to Invitations, 225.
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, on the Principles of Beauty, 36.
Roman Noses, 37.
Rouher, Mons., and the Paris Modiste, 1S2.
Rousseau and the Pinger-brush, 64.
Russian Dinner— Dmer d la Eusse, 214, 216.
Sandals, the ancient, 66.
Scott, Sir Walter, a Man of Society, 111.
Servants, human Nature of, 230 ; how they are generally regarded,
230 ; proper Degree of Intimacy with, 232 ; rude Treatment of, the
Result of ill Breeding, 233 ; Policy of good Treatment, 234.
Shakspeare a Man of Society, 111.
Shortsightedness, 40.
Sir, use and abuse of the Word, 244.
Skin, the, Structure and Functions of, 27 ; Soap is required to Cleanse
it, 28 ; Cosmetics and Washes only hide the Dirt, 29 ; yellow Spots
removable by Lime-juice, 29.
Slattern, the domestic, 171.
Snuff, Effects of taking, 113. ,
Social Offenders, 228. '
Sour-krout, a Duchess's Opinion of, 102.
Speech— Purity of, 127 ; Sir Robert Peel and the Letter //, 128 ; loud-
ness, 128 ; Slang Terms in use, 120 ; profane Swearing—Pledges of
'^Word'' and ''Hoiwr," 130; fashionable Falsehood, 130; Paley at-
tempts a Justification, 132 ; danger of conceding^ the least Privi-
lege to a Lie, 132 ; instance of a fashionable LiaaB2 ; some polite
Lies that can not be justified, 133 ; Plain-speakiiig may be carried
to excess, 133 ; impertinent Realists, 134 : the Baby that was like
a Flat-headed Indian, 135 ; unwelcome Verities, 135; good Side of
Plain-speaking, 136 ; prudishness of Speech, 136 ; Sterne's "Ac-
cessory Ideas," 137.
Sprawling on Chairs or Sofas, 97.
Squinting, 40.
Sterne's " Accessory Ideas," 137 ; Apothegm, 158.
Strong Woman, a, 192.
Suckling's description of a pretty Mouth, 50.
Summer Clothing, 177.
Sydenham, Dr., on Cheerfulness, 109,
278 INDEX.
Table— how the Breakfast-table should be prepared, 19G ; for the
Diner a la Russe, 214 ; for the French Dinner, 216.
Talleyrand, Lameness of, 81 ; on the Importance of Dmners, 205.
Tartars, the Noses of the, 37.
Teeth, the— wholesome Look of white Ivories, 56 ; improve a home-
ly Face, 56 ; Tie douloureux and other painful Diseases caused by
neglected Teeth, 56 ; want of Cleanliness, 57 ; Children should be
early taught to clean their Teeth, 57 ; not to be used as Nut-crack-
ers, 57 ; why they decay, 58 ; Toothpicks, 58 ; Lord Chesterfield's
New-Year's Gift to his Son, 58 ; the Tartar, 58 ; Soap the best
cleaner, 59 ; Tobacco Smoking and Chewing, 59.
Thinness, 86 ; Cause and Cure, 87.
Tight-lacing, danger and folly of, 82.
Titles— unauthorized in the United States, 243 ; use of Sir and Mad-
am, 244 ; titular Addresses, 245 ; Collegiate Titles, when they
should be used, 246 ; Esquires, 247 ; Female Dignitaries, 248 ; ad-
dressing Letters, 249.
Tobacco, effects of, on the Teeth, 59.
Tongue, the— demands great Care, 53 ; the Fur, 53 ; Tongue-scrap-
ers, 53 ; Dr. Holmes's Anecdote of Edward Winslow and Massa-
soit, 53 ; the Tongue as an Indicator of Disease, 54 ; readily heals,
but is often the Seat of dangerous Disease, 55 ; its true Functions,
55 ; how it is abused, 55.
Travelers, English and American, 251.
Turkish Taste, 83.
Ugly Men, Success of, 81.
Venus of Milo in Comparison with a modern Lady, 82.
Visiting— a fashionable List, 235 ; a fashionable Call, 237 ; formal
Calls, 238 ; Cards, 239 ; on New-Year's Day, 240 ; Etiquette of
Leave-taking, 241 ; the President, 254.
Voice, the— defects of the American, 138 ; Children shout when they
should talk, 139 ; the Charm of a low, sweet Voice, 139 ; Reading
aloud a good Practice, 140 ; certain ugly Noises by the Mouth, 140 ;
smacking the Lips barbarous, 149.
Warts, 64.
Wedding Breakfasts, Dress for, 204.
Weddings— Cards and Presents, 265; the Ceremony, 266; Kissing
the Bride, Queen Victoria's Marriage, 267.
Wilkes, his Noa^37 ; popular with Ladies despite his Ugliness, 81.
Winking and d^lng, 121.
Winslow, Edward, cures Massasoit, 53.
Winter Clothing, 177.
Working-people, their Dress, 160.
Wriggling Nose, 80.
Xantippe, the lean-mouthed Wife of Socrates, 50.
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